Myles' 21st birthday

Laura has instructed me to write this blog as its my birthday and as I haven't done a blog in a while so here goes.

Saturday morning came around and we wished we had gone to sleep at a much more sensible time than we did as we were rather tired, Laura disappeared downstairs for a while and instructed me not to follow. Me being me the temptation was great but I resisted and laid in bed for half an hour. Laura returned with breakfast in hand! A vast selection of sausages eggs fried bread beans etc, all the bits a man could want for breakfast. Laura ran off again and came back in with some presents she had bought, being on the budget we are on it is very hard to choose something to buy and the fact that I am very hard to shop for (apparently). Anyway Laura had got me a top gear magazine, a lovely shirt that I wore all weekend and a wallet to replace my current one that was starting to look a little tired and some nesquick. I have had a desire for a milkshake for a rather long time so that should settle my craving! No time was wasted and we started getting ready for our big trip out! We packed all we needed and threw it in the car. The other thing that wasn't so easy to put in the car was Tara. She knew the drill once the collar was on and she walked to the car. I lifted her in and she settled down straight away. Debra and Ian had flown to a wedding in Melbourne so the house would be empty, Debra had arranged for Tara to go to a kennel for the night, well a dog hotel really. We dropped her off and headed to the mountains. After a little bit of a drive we came across a waterfall called Wentworth Falls where we stopped for a photo opportunity and lunch. Lunch consisted of leftovers from last nights BBQ. We packed up and hit the road again. The GPS took us to the hotel door with only one detour but we won't go into the mind of the sat nav. Laura had booked us into the Palais Royale hotel which on the outside looked rather lovely. Inside however was also just as lovely. We got the keys and found the room when a minute later a bottle of complementary champagne arrived! Myles popped the cork and we had a glass each. We popped the bottle in the fridge for later and investigated the town to find an eatery. We walked up and down and settled for a little Italian place, it was called papadinos and run by a rather eccentric Italian chap. An old boy that had no real idea of what he was doing however made a joke out of anything and everything he could so it was a good laugh. Dinner was great we both had a calzone only mine had more bits in than Laura's. After dinner we walked back up the street watched a fire dancer, decided he wasn't as good as the maniacs from Fiji and left. We got back to the hotel and finished most of the champagne while watching a programme on wildlife in a rainforest. Yes that is how we spent my 21st, watching a program that didn't have David Attenborough in. There wasn't much in the way of clubs in the blue mountains and even if there was we wouldn't have gone anyway. We settled down to bed and had a brilliant nights sleep. 

Sunday morning came around and we were up nice and early to catch the breakfast. A proper breakfast was served none of this continental breakfast rubbish  and we both tucked in! Eventually we finished and went back to the room to plan our days activities. Laura decided that she wanted to go to a chocolatiers along with the scenic world trip. We gave our keys back and headed out. We found the chocolate place easily however Laura then realised that it opened at 10. We were there at half 9. Change of plan we went to scenic world first. Again we found it with ease and went in. Scenic world is basically a tourist attraction that takes you through the rainforest in the blue mountains. Cable cars take you across the forest looking down on the canopy along with a view of around 170km to the horizon. That's about 102 miles for you British folk. Or a bloody long way for the Australian folk. We had a go on the worlds steepest railway, it was indeed very steep. We had a walk around the rainforest for a couple of hours and headed back once it started to get hot and people started to arrive at the height of the day. We then headed back to the chocolatiers and sampled some delightful chocolate. This made Laura very happy indeed. We strapped up and headed for home. On the way back Myles spotted a sign that read "famous Australian panorama" this intrigued us, so we turned off to investigate. This made the sat nav very angry. We looked and looked but saw no panorama. We got to a junction feeling defeated and decided to head home but for some reason we both decided to turn left instead of right. Turning right would have taken us home. We found a winding road that went on for a couple of miles and all of a sudden came across a national park!! We saw no staff now a barrier so we forgot to pay and went in for a drive about. The roads were rather steep with hairpin corners. A petrol heads dream if we were in a supercar but as we had borrowed Debra's car we edged around carefully just enjoying the view. Exploring every lane each containing a different view. It was brilliant! Time was pressing on so we decided to head home. The drive home was as nice as it was on the way up and arrived home to see that Debra and Ian were home before us. We told them all about the trip and headed to bed as we were so tired. We did manage to have a chat to daddy and Andrew which was great to catch up! 

This was the 170km view. To give an idea of scale the mountain in the middle is of similar size to Ularu! 

This was one of the cable cars that took us down into the rainforest. Yes it is as steep as it looks!!

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