Show Us your Craic! -'Australia'! John and Deirdra

So it’s Tuesday Morning, and having spent about two full days recovering from John’s Birthday weekend, we eventually summoned the energy to pack up and leave Sydney after a great 10 days or so. It’s a city with so much to do and see and so many areas to be explored that you could well spend longer there- if deciding where to base yourself for a few months, the choice is huge between Bondi, Manly or the more inner city suburbs like Newtown- but wherever your based, you’ll never be far from chilled out beaches, or a hectic city lifestyle-whatever takes your fancy! Anyway, that’s my respects paid to good old Sydney, and so we’re off in wee campervan again, I love this bit! Getting into a civilised city is wicked when you’ve been in the wilderness for a while, but what’s even better is heading off into rural Australia again when you’ve had enough of the urban comforts. So our next port of call was the elusive Blue Mountains- an area I hadn’t heard much about until all the posters in Sydney Hostels raved about this “backpacker experience”. Not to be a cynic but I often think that all these heavily advertised “tours” will end up just being another tourist trap so we headed off thinking “sure we’ll have a wee peep yon hills then race up the coast some more before dark”- little did I know that the Blue Mountains would be some of the most magnificent sights I’ve seen so far and that we’d end up staying for two days. After punching in some random mountainous area into the GPS, we landed at an area called the Jamison Valley and after all the heavy drinking and eating out in Sydney we we’re all for a bit of a health kick- and so we donned our sexy hiking boots and headed for a “bushwalk” among the mountains! (Sounds more risky than it is- there were paths and whatnot-although we were heavily warned that “it is rugged country” and even the most experienced hikers have got lost or even died in their pursuit of the magnificent views) Anyway, dandering among the bushes and trees we were a bit sceptical for about 15 mins and John was doing his usual “it’s a bit shit innit?” routine, then all of a sudden an arrow pointing to a lookout area directed us to this mental, awe-inspiring view of vast mountains, stretching for miles into the distance with huge valleys sweeping down into the lush rainforests- in other words it was mental- like one of those scenes from lord of the rings when they do a big sweeping shot of the countryside etc. The walk only got better, crawling down into the valley, the paths got narrower and dare I say treacherous (that’s a bit exaggerated- but it was treacherous by my standards- i.e climbing up the hill at the back of my granny’s house in Donegal) Gradually waterfalls and towering sandstone cliffs appeared around us and I couldn’t help but sing the Indiana Jones theme tune the whole way down- I’m a twat I know, but It was so cool and breathtaking considering the day before I was lying in a dirty hostel in Bondi Beach listening to pigeons having a punch up against my window)