Food glorious food

Mmm. we have just been for a gorgeous meal. We went for a glorious five course meal at a restaurant overlooking the beach, well one of them anyway. It was simply divine. Rather than write down a blow by blow description, the degustation menu can be viewed here:
http://www.watermarkrestaurant.com.au/

So now I am sitting on the couch nursing my full stomach and pretending I have a burning need to update my blog. I am sure that our shopping session this morning means that I can get away with eating that much. I decided I had a burning need to get more small tops as my wardrobe is fairly heavy on technical fabrics and I don't think I will be doing that much hiking. So now I have some pretty small dresses and a lovely pair of shorts that would have been deemed indecent in muslim countries. Hopefully I can get them all in my rucksack. Maybe I should make sure Duncan has some space in his luggage for all my crap...

Tomorrow I am being entrusted with Alice as Liz had some extra work lined up. I am planning a visit to the zoo to try and wear her out by the power of animals. As the zoo is on a rather steep hill I may just wear myself out pushing her buggy up and down. I suspect I may need an afternoon nap more than she does. Apart from that our plans involve more eating and bit more running around after a toddler. I head off on Sunday morning and get to Rarotonga a day before I take off. I love time differences.

I made it out for a few days this week and hired a car and headed off to the Blue Mountains. After an initial battle with the hire car and some help from a passer by (well, I have never driven an automatic before) I managed to get out of Sydney reasonably easily and had a two hour drive. First of all I stopped off in Katoomba, which has the main sites. The blue mountains are a massive national park with miles and miles of rainforest and red stone escarpments. I set off from the main viewpoint and had a short wander to the Three Sisters which are massive fingers of rock jutting out into the valley. There were some steps beside them marked "for strong walkers only" and I set off down. After 40 minutes I got to the bottom of the stairs and my thighs felt like they may give way. Luckily it was a lovely flat walk after that through the forest to the cable car to take you back off. I was just glad not to have to face the stairs again. There was also a walk through the rainforest on a raised board path which was nice if busy.

I set off after this for Megalong Hertage Park where I was booked in to a B&B and a 2 hour horse ride the next morning.
http://www.megalongcc.com/

It is a huge ranch in a valley surrounded by the mountains. It was really beautiful but I was a bit nervous when the woman checking me in announced that it was only me that would be there that night and "she would not want to stay out there all alone". I suddenly felt like perhaps I was in the opening scenes of a horror movie and the freaky inbred locals would be coming to torture me forthwith. Luckily I was fine and am obviously still alive although I did have a few moments watching tv in the giant lounge with the door that would not close, never mind lock.

The next day was brilliantly suny and all thoughts of horror films were suitably banished from my mind. Instead I got on a lovely horse called Paula and headed out with Lisa, the girl from the farm. We were riding on horses traditionally used in trotting races. This largely meant that most of their movement at speed was straight up and down ie damn bouncy. It was a really lovely ride though and the horses were great. Afterwards my legs were screaming as I am totally out of condition and I couldn't face a long walk. Instead I headed to a spot on the map marked as "Edinburgh Castle Rock". Nothing like the original but very pretty.

So I finally headed back to Sydney and even managed to get back to Liz and Craigs without getting lost or causing an accident.