Skinner Family adventures: The Blue Mountains

On Monday we set off for the Blue Mountains, but before we went we stopped off at a Sydney Harbour lookout that Fanny told us about, just to take some snaps to prove to the children later on in life, that this weekend, they had actually been to Sydney, Australia!

Seeing the Sydney Harbour Bridge always reminds me of the time I walked across it, before Naomi and Benny were even born. I went by myself, as Alex doesn't really like heights. I was on the 2.15pm Bridge Climb, I remember it well. The 1.45pm group of about twenty walkers left, all decked out in their grey overalls with their safety clips and harnesses, then the 2pm group lined up. The anticipation was building, it was nearly my turn. At 2.15pm, our group was called. I stood up, and on the other side of the room, a very small Japanese man stood up. I looked around, but no, that was it. Our 'group' consisted of two people. The lady taking us said, 'oh, this is a very small group' but decided to crack on anyway. On the climb we had to keep stopping and talking all the way, just to stop ourselves from joining the group in front, she must have told us everything she knew about Sydney, never mind just the Bridge and the Opera House, but there wasn't much chatting from our little friend, as it turned out that he spoke no English. I was working for HP at the time and the only real information we managed to get from him was that he worked for our rivals, IBM!

When I returned to Alex I proudly showed him my official 'I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge' photograph. 'Why is there a very small Japanese man in your photograph?' said Alex. 'Ah', I explained, 'it cost $20 for the individual photograph, but the group photo was free:)!!!'

Back to the story. Our first stop in the Blue Mountains was a little walk to the Wentworth Falls.

The 'Orphan Rock', I think that's his name;)

Then to a lovely little town called Leura. Fanny had said, 'you HAVE to go to Leura, it is lovely'. And it was lovely. But Fanny went with her mum, and I went with Alex, so it probably wasn't quite the same. I walked around beautiful shops like these (and dreamed of all the things I would buy if Alex wasn't there)...