Day 4 - Climb the peaks, dip the seas - Our longest car ride yet

Dear Readers,

A verry happyy neww year to all of you! (And Happy B'day to HJ!) Initially theokwek was deciding whether to post something to do with New Year or continue with his travel diary, but since he's guilty of not writing anything since Christmas, and the travel diary has been broken for some time, he shall continue his travel diary. New Year's piece should be out soon. Should be.

Listening to Menuhin's recording of Les Ronde Des Lutins now. Breathtaking! theokwek will never be able to play that. never.

I haven't blogged since last year!

The Straight Times Editor

Elated by the previous day's let up in the mist, we woke up fresh and early this morning expecting to see a clear Blue Mountain but instead the mist was back. Bigger and Better than ever.

Not to be defeated easily, we had our breakfast of mountain cereal and went off towards Scenic Park, from which there were trails to around the Blue Mountain Area. First, we decided to walk through the forest track to see the Katoomba Falls, another dizzyingly beautiful landmark of the area. The below show scenes from our trek.

However, the mist was not on our side, and we got to the observation deck only to find everything clothed in white, a slight drizzle bathing the path and a very discouraged group of singaporeans.

We decided to make another pass at appreciating the elusive scenery of the mountain by taking a cable car down the cliffs and into the Blue Mountain Valley. Now this was a good ride. We were surrounded on all sides by majestic landforms and looking down, a lush rainforest greeted us. Upon reaching the bottom, we strolled down the broadwalk, enjoying All Things Bright And Beautiful. It was very strange at first, I remember, because of the cold weather. Imagine walking through the deepest areas of MacRitchie, but finding yourself in below 15 degrees temperature.

I am very proud to announce that at the end of our sojourn in the valley of Blue Mountains, we Singaporeans took the STEEPEST FUNICULAR RAILWAY IN THE WORLD. It was this railway that was ALMOST perpendicular and we took it up. That means we were zooming upwards backwards and looking down at the ground below. And without seatbelts. And I happened to be sitting right in front. Below are the photos.

After that wonderfully nauseating ride - seriously we enjoyed ourselves - we headed off to Port Stephen for the next leg of the trip. This was our longest car ride yet, lasting a total of 5 and a half hours. We had lunch on the way at... RED ROOSTER RESTAURANT ... and arrived at Samurai Beach Resort bedraggled, exhausted and generally very crumpled. We were still in the mood to take photos of flowers (see first pic below) - which were plentiful, take a walk around the resort (see second pic below) - which is probably the best in the world, and play a game of beach volleyball.

So after a very sandy and very exciting game, we headed off to dinner at Salamander Bay, took a walk around the shopping centre and headed back to the resort. A very soft very inviting double-decker bed waited for us there.