Gosford (for Feb. 14 Happy Valentine’s Day!)

We left the hotel at 9:30 under a low overcast. As we climbed up into the Blue Mountains, the cloud became fog and mist – not the best scenario when the task for the day is to observe scenery. By the time we reached our first objective, Wentworth Falls, visibility was quite poor, but the overcast seemed a little patchy, like it might break up soon. We decided to take a hike down to one of the observation points and hope for improved conditions. We started to get some light drizzle, but from the viewpoint you could see some brighter spots in the valley below. It didn’t make much sense to sit and wait, so we decided to hike to another viewpoint and keep our hopes up. At the second point it was still pretty foggy so we gave up and returned to the car. Celeste’s hip was pretty sore from all the steps down and back up. We got a few pictures of nearby features, but we were pretty disappointed that we couldn’t see more than a mile or two.





Next stop was a series of viewpoints at Katoomba. With fingers crossed, we pressed on. To our surprise, the cloud had lifted, giving decent visibility below cloud, and there were even some breaks allowing the sun to shine through. Here we walked and drove around, taking in the views, although Celeste wasn’t able to participate fully.


The last stop was Blackheath, which promised views of the Australian Grand Canyon on the opposite (north) side of the escarpment. The nearer we got, the lower the ceiling until we were again in fog that grew thicker until visibility was down to about 50 metres. We pressed on to the viewpoints, hoping for the best, but the visibility didn’t improve, so we turned back along our original course. We had planned to make a loop by continuing on another road on the north side of the canyon, but I expected similar poor conditions on that route, so we returned on the one we had just driven that had been pretty good. Although our route was only 65 km each way on the map, all the walking, driving around, and observing took us all day, as we passed by our start point at 5:30 en route to our stopping point for the night.

The road into the Mountains was quite good – wide, with good shoulders and no sharp curves, although it wound back and forth quite a bit. It was even divided in a few places. The speed limit varied from 60 kmph through the many towns in that short distance to 80 kmph when things opened up. After passing our starting point, we drove 30 km on freeway, 20 km on ‘Lewvan Drive’ type city streets, 50 km on freeway, and the last 10 km in Gosford, arriving in our hotel at 7:30. The last stretch of freeway was pretty impressive, with some huge cuts through rock.

Every time we turn on the radio or TV in the last couple of days, all we hear about is the Bali 9. This is the group of kids that tried to smuggle heroin from Bali to Australia. So far, two have been sentenced to death and four to life in prison with three more to be sentenced tomorrow. Everybody has an opinion. “They knew what they were getting into and now they should face the music.” “The penalty is too severe and they should be shown leniency.” “The Australian police are to blame because the parents of one boy tipped them off and they didn’t stop him.”