Birthday and Blue Mountains

On the 28th of Dec it was Jasmin’s 20th birthday. We decided to go out to dinner and have a curry, however there did not seem to be many Indian restaurants around, after doing a bit of research on the web we found one called the Mantra Indian Restaurant and so made our way there.



From the outside it looked awful, a bit run down and the cheap sari material hanging inside the entrance made it look very tacky, we all looked at each other and considered maybe going somewhere else but decided to brave it. As we walked inside there were only 2 other families there and the tacky saris and decorations continued. We sat down to order and waited for our curries. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying their food so we were hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Also as it came up to 8pm the place started to get a lot busier which reassured us a little. Our food came and it was ok, not the greatest Indian we’ve had but it was edible. After our dinner we surprised Jasmin with a small birthday cake with a “20” candle on top. Jasmin commented on how embarrassed she was to have her age displayed for all at the restaurant to see, well if a 20 year old feels old, what does that make me?



The following day the 4 of us left to do a daytrip to the Blue Mountains (the blue haze, which gave the mountains their name is a result of the ultra-fine oily mist given by the eucalyptus tree). We left about 9am and relaxed on the 3 hour train journey there. The train was so busy that at first we couldn’t find seats but eventually we did. On arriving at Katoomba we got a tourist map and had a look at our options. We noticed there were a lot of coaches and buses that seemed to go to the main attractions but the girls wanted to save their pennies and so we opted to walk to the Blue Mountains. The walk via the small chocolate hut which had scrummy, cooling milkshakes took us about 45 minutes, it wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for the intense heat, but at last we arrived. The views from Echo Point were amazing.



We overlooked the Jamison Valley and to the left we could saw The 3 Sisters rock formation. The girls wanted to carry on and so we did the 1 hour nature walk to Scenic World which had a steep railway and cable cars. The queue to do these were very long and the girls seemed a bit bored and so wanted to go back to Katoomba city centre. We took one of the tourist busses which only cost about $2 and grabbed some lunch. After wandering around the shops for a little while we made our way back to the train station and then back home. Adam said he felt a bit rushed and would have liked to have stayed a bit longer so we decided we would definitely have to come back to see more.