Now this was a real challenge! I was invited to do a 44km overland trek from Katoomba in the Blue Mountains to Jenolan caves carrying all equipment, 14kg each with 6 Frenchies 🙂

Ben was the organiser and he packed food for us all, as light as possible for two days of hard trekking.

Ready to go 5 Frenchies  and 1 english man.

All looking confident at the entry gate, we didn’t know how difficult it would be.

First it was a very steep downloads path.

It soon got to flat sections but it was very varied in the terrain.

Grassy rolling hills lead to a…

Winery that we were not expecting, so of course being lots of Frenchies we decided to make a 1 hour stop for wine tasting and a cheese platter. Of course we bought a bottle of white and bottle of red wine to take with us, we didn’t care it was more kilos to carry.

Some Aussie Bush wildlife and echidna .

Here we come to the famous Six Foot Track swing Bridge you have to cross to get across a river.

The bridge Rocked around a lot when you crossed and swayed  as you walked, the view was excellent on the bridge though.

It was really hot around 30 degrees and carrying so much weight we really needed to cool down, so we had to strip down and jump in the water and have a swim, it was a really refreshing.

As I got back to my bag to get changed back into clothes, just 1 metre next to my bag was this snake . We weren’t sure what it was but later after the trip discovered it was a brown snake, which is the second most poisonous snake in the world.

It was not afraid of us at all, it kept slowly slipping it’s way towards us as if it was the boss of the land.

Hooray we reached the overnight camp site after a really hot days walk.

The campsite was in a little valley, really cooled down nicely which was really good after such a hot day, and as you can see was very remote, quiet and peaceful.

This is what the locals call a ‘lazy wombat’, basically a dead womat being attacked by a thousand flies, slowly being eaten. it stunk so bad!

Dinner consisted of wine from the earlier winery, plus 3 othwr wines and French sausage, plus lots of other alcohol types including Johnnie Walker Black Label and bourbon and re-hydrated food which wasn’t that bad.

Beginning of the day 2 trek. Day 1 was 20 km’s, day 2 would be 24 approx km’s.

There is some beautiful green and bushy scenery that beginning of day 2. It was nice to prepare for a very long uphill most of the morning of day 2.

Beautiful flower Meadow out in the middle of nowhere.

Lunch stop day 2, there was a freshwater tank here which is excellent for us to fill up. Day 2 was just as hot as day one, 30 degrees, very hard to carry a 15 kg backpack.

The final downward track to the end, only 1 kilometre to go at this point.

So close now we could almost taste the beer.

We made it! 44 km’s over 2 days of very rough ground carrying a lot of weight, we should all be proud of ourselves!

A really well deserved beer at the end tasted like Liquid Gold.

Thank you to Ben for organising the trek, it was very well organised with all the supplies, thank you to everyone I shared this experience with.

Its just so hot outside today! yesterday it was 34 Degree’s, today right now at 5pm and its not getting colder, its 43 degree’s crazy!

 

Check out the reading on someones car!

Temperatures have been steadily rising through the day, at this rate the tyres on my bike will melt on the way home.

 

 

Thanks to my lovely wife for surprising me for a dinner with friends at Darling Harbour’s Meat & Wine Co.

Joining me from left to right was Ali, Troy, me, Sanna, Damien, Brendon, Sam and Steve.

The trio of ribs, Beef,  Lamb and Pork with a glass of Red were amazing as always.

A quick photo from a very drizzley Lotus  club drive this morning, I went with Damien as passenger.

On way back we stopped at Woronora dam where Sydney gets most of its water from for a cheeky photo here where your not meant to be.

Sanna and I planned a simple weekend trip in the new Lotus to Newcastle North of Sydney where our friends live.

We went via the back way through all the twisty roads to test the new car out and stopped at a couple of vineyards.
Here’s my lovely wife and me.

When we got to Newcastle we met at Easton’s house and he has a series 2 Elise so we were car nerds and compared all the small differences between the series 2 and 3 Lotus Elise.

On Sunday we went for a drive to  place called Morissette just South of Newcastle where there are a lot of Kangaroos just roaming about and you can feed them.

This one had a baby Joel which was cute.

Watch a Video of me feeding a Roo here:

Trying to park the car in the shade from the 30 degree heat. We had to have the air con on full power.

Lastly we went to a spot where a power station releases all its water into the sea and it’s popular for sharks, but we didn’t see any.

I surprised Sanna today for her birthday with a half hour helicopter flight just the two of us over the Sydney CBD and the beaches.

We couldn’t have picked a better spring day nice and sunny and just 25 degrees it was beautiful I’m not windy. This was the first time Sanna has been up in a helicopter and she found it really exciting but the views were just so stunning and probably the highlight of the trip.

We both really enjoyed the short flight and I recommend anyone that’s not been up in a helicopter to give it a go one day on a special occasion it really is a great and beautiful way to see a place that you know.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife Sanna!

We are on the plane back to Sydney now from our lovely Whitsunday islands holiday with Troy and Ali as I write this. Normally we are a little bit happy to be going home after a week’s holiday, but this time we would love to stay just a few more days so we don’t have to go back to the busy lives we have.

We had 2 lovely days on a sailing boat sailing all around the islands stopping at various islands and doing a bit of snorkeling and swimming and as I’m not a big fan of the water I went over to the beaches and explored the water’s edge. Sanna got a bit sea sick as the water was so rough and she threw up over the side twice. I got a big sea sick to but not enough to be actually sick.

We all did a bit of stand up paddle boarding on a calm bay, its easier than it looks i thought, here’s Sanna right off in the distance on the water.

The boat was nice and in good condition and there were 3 other couples on the boat and a women skipper Amy and a man deck hand and cook Matt. Everyone got on very well on the boat and dinner times on the boat were good fun, everyone eating together and have drinks and sharing chocolate.

It was lovely to sit on the front of the boat and sail through the water under wind power and watching a sunset.

Then we got back to dry land and stayed for 5 days in a 4 star resort which we had a large apartment with 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms a kitchen and  a large balcony which lots of cockatoos would come and sit on the railings looking for food from us. Troy fed them crisps and loads came.

We did a lot of walking around where we stayed in Airlie Beach, it’s a small town, very tourist focused but not busy at all. We went out to dinner every night except cooked at home once.

The fishing trip was good as we caught lots of fish, me 6 Troy 4, and then the ones that were legal size we took to a fish restaurant and for $8.50 they cook it and you just order sides. We must of ate about $100 of fish for about $30 bill in total as we supplied the fish.

On the last day we hired a Jeep convertible, they said at the last second, the boss would prefer you not take the roof up and down, how cheeky, that’s why you hire a Jeep convertible. So a couple of km’s out of town we took the roof down but it was so complicated, we gave up and only half took it down. The roof on the Lotus is so much simpler to use.

We went for a drive to a waterfall but as it’s the end of the winters dry season here it wasn’t flowing, Troy built rock stacks, he’s very much a boy sometimes and finds fun, I’m the sensible one, he’s the silly one 🙂

We drove to some very very quiet places, one called Dingo beach and one called hideaway bay, so quiet its even where the locals go to getaway, tiny places with no shops or anything just a tiny tiny pub and some houses.

That was about our weeks holiday and we are sad to go back to Sydney, but at least it’s a Saturday evening we get back and so we have a Sunday. My 3^rd or 4^th time to the Whitsundays and I really love it there, so beautiful, tropical and peaceful and as its part of Australia, an easy holiday to organise.

Here’s the full gallery of photos and videos from our trip: