Crafty Holiday?

I know these next few pictures aren't at all related to craftiness, but I wanted to put them somewhere that people can see them and since my other method wasn't working, I'll just do it this way!

Don't worry though, I have so many crafts on the backburner that they will be pouring in (or on) very shortly. I have a couple quilting projects I need to finish and two that I'm starting this week. Plus I'm going to start putting my cross stitch projects up as well.

So please forgive me as I share un-craft related things in this post.

Today, November 6th, is my husbands birthday, so over last weekend I took him to a beautiful resort called Falls Mountain Retreat for a much needed long weekend away. Falls Mountain Retreat is in a place called Wentworth Falls and is situated in the Blue Mountains about two hours west of the Sydney CBD. The scenery is breathtaking up there.

Saturday while we were there, it was rainy and foggy all day but in the morning we decided to give the weather the benefit of the doubt and hoped it would clear out so we could do some trail walks. We had breakfast at this cozy little restaurant about a three minute drive away (in the densist fog I've seen since Seattle). After breakfast we trudged down a muddy steep trail that was suppose to take us to see Wentworth Falls.

Kinda gives new meaning to jumping into the unseen!

I like the mystery of these pictures.

This was when we were making our way back up the trail. We decided that since the weather didn't want to cooperate, we wouldn't either. So we went went back to the retreat and played computer games all day, safe and warm and extremely comfortable. It was one of those days that will be permanently etched on my mind as one of the most peaceful we've had in a long time.

Then the next day the weather changed and we were treated to beautiful blue skies. It was cold and windy but that didn't deter us from getting out there and beating some more trails! This time it was at a place called Katoomba, which is also in the Blue Mountains, about 10 minutes from where we were staying. They have a piece of scenery there called "The Three Sisters" which, if you're curious, you can see here http://www.bluemts.com.au/tourist/thingsToDo/threeSisters.asp

We didn't stop at just looking at them, like most people do. We did the three hour walk beginning with The Giant Staircase, which is "giant". All 900 steps! In some places the steps were only about 6 inches wide, in some places you had to hold on to the rail for dear life and climb down sideways, one foot at a time. Other places you wanted to be sure you stopped and had a good hold on the rail before you took in the view that demanded your attention. Some of the steps were just rocks, others were metal, and still others were railroad tie type things. All I know is I was so relieved to get to the bottom, even though we still had about two hours worth of walking to do, I could handle that, just "no more stairs!" I'm still hobbling around on legs that hate me. See why below...

Yes, they were that steep!

At the end we stopped near some falls, I don't really know which falls they were, they were beautiful though. However, I didn't get very good pictures of them, just a couple, so here they are...

Just after the falls, there was a thing called the Scenic Railroad that would take us back to the top. It was a nearly vertical drag back to the top of the mountain. They say its a 52 degree angle in places. I would have hated to have to go back down that way! It took us a minute to get back up what took us three hours to get down.

It was such a beautiful day.