Two hours out of Sydney lie the Blue Mountains - a stunning national park (which you may have heard about because earlier this year a young English guy got lost in the rainforest for about 9 days and had to be rescued!!) Learning from our mistakes we booked a camp site in Katoomba (the main habited area of the Mountains) before we got there! On arriving in the quaint mountain village we wandered around the town before visiting Scenic World http://www.scenicworld.com.au/ where we saw the incredible scenery and went on the cablecar across the mountains and hiked to a waterfall! That night we cooked our first meal in our very own kitchen (ok it was only pasta! - but it was exciting nonetheless), and were asleep by 8pm!! The following day we left the Blue Mountains and headed for the lake district (australians version) about 2 hours away -choosing Lake Macquaire to become our home for the next few days.
We spent our first day relaxing by the stunning lake and admiring the black swans! The following day we met up with a friend we had met in New Zealand who lives in a town called Newcastle, only about 20mins from the lake. We spent the day exploring Newcastle and watching sea planes take off and land on the harbour!
Hunter Valley was our next destination. The Hunter Valley is Australia’s oldest and one of its most well-known wine regions. We met our friends at the Hunter Valley Gardens were we played Aqua Golf http://www.hvg.com.au/VisitorInformation/Activities1.aspx. That afternoon we went on a sunset horseride in the hills overlooking the vineyard. Sams horse was even called Sam too and was incredibly handsome (just like his owner!!) The ride was fantastic and we even saw our very first Kangaroos!!! As Emma was the only one in the group to have ridden before, she led the group and the instructor stayed at the back. As we went across one field, out of nowhere a giant black and white bird swooped down and started trying to peck Emmas head! The lady was screaming from behind for Emma to look at the bird, however Sam misheard and told Emma to NOT look at the bird, and it kept coming, swooping and trying to peck at her!!! The lady told us that it was a Magpie (although in the UK we call them Crows), and it was nesting season and we had ridden though her territory. Emma had been wearing a black helmet, and the others had been wearing white and the predator of this bird is black so it kept attacking Emma. They will only swoop from behind, so if you keep looking at them they stay away. The lady told us that when they go get the horses from the field they wear helmets and draw faces on the back of them to keep the bird away. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO scary, and ever since, if Emma sees a bird fly anywhere near her she screams and runs away!!! We learnt that one girl in New South Wales had her eyes taken out by one of these birds, and to make it worse, they are protected species!!! - though it was quite funny to watch!
That night we went to bed as normal only to be awoken at about 4am by birds going crazy! We looked out the window to see the sky was bright red!! http://images.2ue.com.au/2009/09/23/748603/DustStorm_53-600x400.jpg At first we had no idea what it could be and thought it may be a bush fire! We got up and literally could not see in front of us - it was really surreal! We learned that it was a dust storm that had taken over a vast proportion of the east coast, and that even sydney was covered over by it - the worst for over 30 years!!! We had booked to do a wine tour which was still going ahead despite the strange weather! The wine tour which took us to about 6 wineries to sample wine, as well as cheese tasting, chocolate and fudge tasting, olives, bread and a whole lot more!! The tour was fantastic - the only disappontment were the views. The usual stunning mountain and vineyard views were clouded by the huge dust storm!! By the end of the tour we didn't want to see another bottle of wine, but we are now connoseurs (spelling??) of wine and shall be expecting everyones collection of wine upon our arrival home!
Our next destination was port macquarie - about a 3 hour drive from the hunter valley region!
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