Magenta to Adelaide

After the wedding we stayed in Magenta for one more night and then started making our way down to Adelaide for Christmas. We were undecided on where to stay the first night - camping near Yass or Canberra. The weather forecast was predicting 50kph winds and 7 degrees so we decided to head for Canberra and the safety of a hotel.
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The Big Merino in Goulburn on the way to Canberra
We visited the war memorial on Tuesday afternoon after checking in. It was interesting and incredibly moving

Sculpture in the Memorial Garden commemorating service men and women at sea

Simpson and his Donkey
Lone Piper at the closing of the memorial

View of Parliament House from the War Memorial

On Wednesday, we wanted to walk to Parliament House and almost got there but we went for coffee first and saw a sign for the annual collection of political cartoons at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House so we went there instead. We spent most of the morning there looking at the cartoons and the exhibits in the museum including Bob Hawke's old office and the chambers of the House of Reps and Senate. There were some really interesting exhibits on the journalists of the press gallery but we didn't have much time. We could have spent the whole day there

Protest badges - this one is dedicated to Jodie

Gardens of Old Parliament House

Monument to the Magna Carta
We walked around Lake Burley-Griffin to the National Museum of Australia and spent the rest of the afternoon there.

Centre of the National Museum of Australia

National Museum of Australia
The next day we went to the Mint (and pressed our own coin!) before heading off to Shepparton to Mark and Courtney's place. We stayed there for the night, supervised toy-box painting (Thanks Guys!) and went to see the Mooving Art before heading to Little Desert Nature Lodge outside of Nhill.

Lion Cow

Shrek  Cow

Skeleton Cow

MerCow

Aussie Cow
We got into Adelaide on the afternoon of the 24th without too much more excitement, except for a weird pink lake we passed on the highway and finally getting rid of the locusts!

Pink Lake

Pink Lake

Locusts in the wheel rim

Emu that was stalking us at Little Desert Nature Lodge

Lawrie's breakfast - he was very proud

Lake at the Little Desert Nature Lodge -  not pink

Adrian & Michelle's Wedding

We headed out of Katoomba on Thursday (16th) and drove down the hill towards Sydney. Kitty took over the driving at Hornsby station and kept heading North to Magenta while Lawrie headed into Sydney on the train. After another rabies shot in the city (the same building as where we got our rings made!) Lawrie headed to the pub with the boys, Kitty to the girls lunch!

On Saturday we took the short drive to Gosford for the wedding. It was a great day, the boys looked dashing and the girls stunning.

The boys waiting patiently for the blushing bride

JUST MARRIED!!! - Another kiss along the aisle.
After the wedding we moved back to Magenta and Lawrie went to pick up Dan Della. We stopped on the way back and Della sorted everyone out with a few boxes of hot chips - they went down very well prior to the canapés and reception!

The reception started as the sun was setting overlooking the lake and golf course. We didn't get too many photos, we were enjoying ourselves too much. There were some very moving speeches which brought a tear to the eye, very heartfelt and our best wishes are with the newly-weds.

Della and Dalby
Suzette and Dion
After a great dinner we settled in to dancing and a few drinks.

Michelle & Ado cut the cake - check out the concentration on Michelle!

Dalby & Courtney 

Kitty & Lawrie later on in the night

The newly-weds!

Much later on...




Blue Mountains

We said goodbye to Trephon and Nikki on Dec 13 and made our way down to the Blue Mountains via the Putty Road and Bells Line of Road. It was a very picturesque drive with some kinda quirky stops and beautiful vistas. These roads are pretty famous for their curves, a favourite of Sydney bikers but pretty dangerous at higher speeds.

Weird Tin Man halfway down the Putty Road

Gutted fuel bowser halfway down the Putty Road

Lookout on the Bells Line of Road

Wildflowers on Bells Line of Road

Sandstone cliffs and dirt track off Bells Line of Road
We baggsed our spot in the caravan park in Katoomba and went to check out the 3 Sisters, which is Katoomba's main attraction (with parking that cost $3.80 per hour!) the information centre was here, where we picked up a map of the tracks.

3 Sisters
We decided to do an easy walk along the scarp and out along Narrow Neck towards Ruined Castle. This was all on a driveable dirt road (to a locked gate, our goal). Taking the option of every side track we stopped many times and it took around twice the time heading out! This was well worth it with some great views across the valley.

View across the valley, ruined castle in the middle.

Narrow neck

View to the West on a side track

Kitty and the scarp

The BEST find of the walk!

"Lawrie, don't go there!" - Kitty

The reason why - 100m straight drop
 Tuesday was our first real down day, we woke up to fog and rain and decided to try and sort out a Brazillian Visa in town, forgetting the passport was probably a good sign to stop, the website failed when we tried to submit the forms! Very Frustrating! We spent some time catching up on errands and uploading photos!

Wednesday we headed to Jenolan Caves, the bus was late so we called up & they said that the bus was coming, Lawrie was a little over it at this point and we jumped the trolley to town - just as the bus passed us. We made it, just...little tense time!

Waiting for the bus...


Heading into the caves, the road passes straight through this hill.


Kitty at the entrance to the main cave
Looking back out - entrance to Lucas cave on the right.

Our first cave tour was into the Lucas Cave, which is the largest show cave here. It has a very large roof fall area, but it's been stable for a fair time now, given the size of the calcite formations! You can still tell exactly where each piece fell from and which joints controlled it! Total size from memory was in order of footy field in size.

At the start of the Lucas system

Interesting colours and formation

Broken Column - Roof fall area (flat as still!)

Rhino head - Roof fall area

Column and flowstone over a stalagmite 

Veils

The different colours come from dissolved iron oxide when the water came through.


After the Lucas Cave we had lunch and then went on the Orient Cave tour, which is one of the prettiest caves in the system
Very clear calcite formation

Helictites 

Very famous veils

Stalagmites and small helictites

Flowstone below column

Orient cave - wow!

Bottom of Orient cave - down to the pool!

Orient cave



Interesting fresh (in cave terms) helicties and stalamites
We caught the bus back to Katoomba and had dinner with some German guys we met at the campsite. We packed up the next morning and made our way into Sydney (for Adrian's buck's party) and Magenta Shores (for Michelle's hen's). More next time....