Day 9: Blayney > Blue Mountains > Blayney

Just to set your expectations, there will not be anything particularly deep, meaningful or philosophical in today’s post. Don’t say that you haven’t been warned.

If you are looking for something really outrageous or scandalous, you might want to consider checking in on either the Johnny Depp trial, or the Federal election.

I can tell you that the shower block at the Blayney Caravan Park has these massive shower heads, heaps of pressure, and loads of hot water. I stood under the hot waterfall for so long that if someone had used a meat thermometer on me, I probably would have recorded as medium-rare.

I may have already told you that last night – I actually can’t recall – but the thought of those showers still excites me.

I can also tell you that the toilet cassette was only emptied in Yass, so we are unlikely to be playing the toilet light game for another couple of nights yet. You will just have to remain in suspense to see how that plays out.

And Friday also means clean socks and jocks. That will be nice 🙂

I also note that it is the end of the working week for those that still work for a living. Long weekend in Queensland this weekend, so you can all have Monday off.

The forecast today is for rain – no surprises there – and we are planning a trip to the Blue Mountains. That has to be a fairly safe, low risk, low excitement outing.

We needed to do a few mundane domestic duties this morning – a bit of washing, sweep out the van – that kind of stuff. Probably an exercise in futility washing the sheets and towels and then hanging them under the awning all day while it is raining, but we need to do what we can to maintain a semblance of routine and civilisation.

We packed all of our wet weather clothes into Elsie, put our wet weather shoes on our feet, saddled up and rode out of town at about 8.45am. We may be a lot of things, but we are highly inconsistent in the time we get going each morning.

The roads into Bathurst, on our way to Katoomba, were wet and foggy … or maybe it was low cloud. How can you tell? In any case, good reason to be cautious.

We got to Bathurst, fueled up Elsie, and then proceeded to drive up the mountain through Lithgow, Mount Victoria, Blackheath and then Katoomba.

We got into the Blue Mountains lookout for the Three Sisters at around 11.15 and took in the sights. For some silly reason, I’ve had ”Echo Point, faraway in time, Echo Point …” stuck in my head all day 🙁

Absolutely spectacular scenery.

We needed a hot caffeinated beverage, so we found Elsie and had another of our world famous tailgate smokos.

From there, MBW had it in her head that she wanted to go and see (and ride) the cable car thingy that takes you from the top of the mountain down towards the bottom. For those of you that know me, you will be acutely aware that I don’t like hanging precariously by a few thin cables and putting my life at risk.

I don’t like rollercoasters, I don’t like cable cars, I don’t like heights. Hey, I don’t even like standing on tippy-toes.

With any luck it will be closed, so I took a chance and said ”as you wish”.

The good news: They have a discounted rate for seniors cardholders.

The bad news: There is lots of bad news 🙁 Firstly it was open and running. Secondly it was expensive, even with the senior discount and that set us back just a bit under $100. Thirdly, it’s not just a cable car, but a cable car, another cable car, and railway track that goes almost vertical. Finally, you can ride them as many times as you want, even until you vomit if you want to.

Have a look at the photo below: does that look like it has any fun attached to it, or is all you see danger, risk, and unpleasantness?

Here are the rest of the photos, and you can judge for yourself. I can tell you that it did nothing to help when the guy running the cable car says – just as we plunged over the edge into (almost) oblivion, ”If you are afraid of heights, it’s too late now to get out”.

Funny guy

I think it is entirely obvious that not one person on that carriage is having any fun. Not. One. Person..

In fact, while those two sitting behind me appear to be laughing, I was quietly having a personal ”code brown”.

In other unrelated news, I just wanted to point out how technologically advanced we are for a pair of seniors card holders. We have our own selfie stick, so no asking other people to take photos for us any longer.

We really are on the bleeding edge of technology.

It’s interesting to note how all rides at Scenic World deposit you conveniently in the gift shop when you are done for the day, so we had a quick browse on our way out. Personally I was hoping to find a souvenir vomit bag, but they didn’t appear to have any in stock.

That’s a missed opportunity.

Done at Scenic World it was about 1.30pm and we hadn’t had lunch, so we went into the Katoomba Town Centre, found a bakery and bought a couple of sausage rolls.

Oh and by the way – in case you hadn’t noticed – that blue thing at the top of many of the photos is called ”the sky”. Despite some rain and low cloud coming up the mountain, by the time we reached the top, the clouds had rolled away and the sun was out and shining.

We left Katoomba about 2.30pm and headed back down the hill towards Bathurst. We had a brief stop at Lithgow for a(nother) hot caffeinated beverage. Don’t you just LOVE the 2 medium coffees for $4 on the Macca’s app?

Taking a quick detour into McDonald’s sent poor old Brandon into a bit of a spin, but he got over it once we got back onto the road home again.

By the way, below is a picture of Brandon, in case you’ve ever wondered what he looks like. Well, this is what I imagine he looks like …

Back at Bathurst we stopped at Woolies to get some more groceries. It blows my mind that we somehow manage to buy groceries nearly every day, and I’m certain that we buy way more groceries than we ever eat.

That is something that I’ve been puzzling over for some time. I know why we need to buy everyday – it’s because our fridge is not that big and we are always running out of things because we can’t store much in the first place, but why we buy more than we eat I just can’t figure out.

If anyone knows the answer to that riddle, please let me know.

We got back to Blayney at around 4.30pm and I only had one important job to do, and that was book Elsie in for a service.

I forgot 🙁

I was also advised on the way back to Blayney that we are having another vegetable stack for dinner tonight. I’m not sure if that is in response to how much we have spent over the last couple of days, or if it’s because we still have half of the vegetables in the fridge uneaten, but something really creepy happened.

Do you remember the last time we had a vegetable stack for dinner? Remember we were in Bulli Beach, vegetable stack, upper shower block, getting probed, rabbits? Remember?

Well not long after MBW advised that we are having another vegetable stack, we pulled into the Blayney Caravan Park and guess what was on the front lawn?

Rabbits! Four of them! No kidding!

Is that creepy or what?

Tonight I’ve been cooking the vegetable stack at the same time as I’ve been doing the blog. I’ve also made coffee for MBW at the same time as I’ve been doing the blog.

Do you know what you can learn from that boys and girls? It says that you shouldn’t listen to those mean women who say that men can’t do two things at the same time. That’s what we can learn!

I was also told that ”last time you overcooked the eggplant”. Unfortunately I have no idea how long I cooked the eggplant last time, so I have no idea how long I should cook it this time.

I guess that I will be on my first warning too, just like poor old Brandon 🙁

Dinner over, dishes done, blog posted, coffee made, and I am ready to head over to the shower block for another long and luxurious hot shower. Tonight I’m going for medium-well.

Only 284km today, but it was just a run up the mountain to Katoomba and back.

I confess that I looked longingly at Mount Panorama as we drove past on our way back to Blayney this afternoon, and wondered if I could set a land speed record around the mountain with the van on the back … but I didn’t ask because I expect that the fun police will just tell me that is ”irresponsible”.

Tomorrow we are heading off again, this time through Orange and towards Parkes for a couple of nights, then onwards north towards home.

I wish that I could have provided you with more educational content tonight – like why gas bottles use a reverse thread – but I actually don’t know the answer to that question, so I’ll ponder it while I am luxuriating in the shower tonight.

Ciao

#RoadTripNSW2022

#I’mGladIDidn’tDieOnTheCableCarToday