Saturday January 10th, 2009 Blue Mountains

On her run this morning, Barb found another approach to the viewpoint we were at yesterday, and discovered from that point it was possible to view the Katoomba Cascade without taking the 45 minutes walk. Therefore as soon as we had finished breakfast we were off to take in the viewpoint before the crowds. It was spectacular, and while we were there we also watched some white Cockatoos cavorting over the valley. Quite a sight! On the way back we also spotted these two other birds which we now know are Crimson Rosella. Gorgeous Birds.
Then we were off to explore the Jenolan Caves. It is quite a journey to get to them, but well worth the journey. We explored one of only 9 accessible caves. There is only one you are allowed to enter on your own and it was rated as very difficult, and so we chose the guided tour through the Imperial Cave. It was a 1.5 hr adventure which enabled us to get quite a few wonderful pictures, and further explore the settings on the camera. For example, these two pictures are of the same formation but with different settings. Great fun! Although we have explo0ored caves previously, there were a few unusual sights including these sheet like formations that are translucent and brightly coloured. The end of the cave is pictured here, with the cave reflected in the river that flows through the cave. In the picture it is difficult to tell cave from reflection, and when we first spotted the river, it was so calm we thought it was a sheet of plastic covering sand on the bottom of the cave floor.
On the drive back to town we decided we needed to do a bit of laundry to tide us over for the next week, so Harry went off on that task, and Barb got to go on the internet at the motel and get up yesterday and this part of today’s blog. If we do anything really exciting for the rest of today – we will post it tomorrow’s blog.