Feeling Blue, But loving Blue

The light is going out and I wish I could say more but I am having to hold my tongue.  I would love to find a way to say what I feel, which is both angry and sad, but that might make things worse.  However, there is like this permanent tension at present, but not to do with my life, but with the life of others.  In myself I am both happy and light much of the time, but the rest of the time I am still just ill and unable to do anything. It is hard to credit that this is the same women who got on the train and headed to the Blue Mountains just outside of Sydney.  And once again it is a trip I have to thank Michael Portillo for because probably without him I would not have realised a) how close the mountains are to Sydney and b) how accessible they are and c) how even though they are over an hour away from the centre of Sydney and Sydney is a very clean town, every inch of fence and house en route is graffitied, which looks great in most places, very urban, but less attractive when majestic mountains and a blue haze, caused by the gum trees,  is on the horizon. 

I stayed away from the edges, but loved the views. 

Another experience I passed on. 

My rationale for the trip was relatively simple, on TV the Blue Mountains always looked enticing, but they were also cheaper to stay in than Sydney and I felt they would give me a sense of what small town Australia was like.  I was lucky prior to going there I met a woman in Manchester who had lived in Wentworth, almostthe next town down from where I was staying and she knew Katoomba, and could recommend several good eateries in town.  Without her input, I might never have tried Kangeroo Pizza at the Station,  (the pizza I can recommend, but Kangeroo is really not to my taste but I thought was better than crocodile) I definitely would not have had the courage to walk into the wonderful Carrington hotel for lunch.  Nor would I have gone in search of the oddly named Parisien cafe (given the location) run by a Japanese woman who she had befriended.   They all added to the pleasure of this one road town on the border of stunning countryside. 

               

Wonderful cider at the Station Bar. 

I also had a bit of luck as when I popped into the hop on, hop off bus which I had booked for just one day, they said I could use it for all three days of my visit.   For me this was perfect, as I managed to get lost on my own and this enabled me to visit key sites, go up and down dale, and yet grab a coffee and make it manageable.   The views are wonderful and it is great just being in the bush, but surprisingly little wildlife visible, except the cockatoos.  If it was not for the original residents most of the walkways would not exist,  so one is walking over ancient and sometimes sacred spaces, which is not always good, but the area was  also once a mining town and now is just a really pretty tourist area with lots of lovely flowers whilst also in parts being a little run down and the kind of place lost souls gravitate towards.    Some come to really hike miles, for example one of the other residents of the youth hostel had worked for the education section for Joe Biden and had just caught a plane out of the country on election day she is still awol all these months later and just walks and walks, others, many from Asia,  were bused in and out in one day with just time for a coffee overlooking the valley.  Whereas I got to potter, and find stones that resonated and gravestones honouring the dead from both sides in WW1.   I could have happily stayed there perched on the edge of Sydney, and would have loved it if I could have afforded one of the houses,  but the big city was calling me back.   

Another bar, this time at the Carrington Hotel, actually the Youth Hostel was pretty swish, but I would have loved to have stayed at this place. 

Reminders of the pain of WW1