My next stop was the Blue Mountains and the city of Katoomba.   Everyone kept telling me I had to see the Blue Mountains and they were right, it was stunning!   A bit like the Smokies, including the ever-present haze.   In this case, it had a blueish tint, said to be from droplets of Eucalypt oil.     There is a Hop On Hop Off Bus to takes you to all the sights and if you stay in Katoomba you can ride the bus the entire time of your stay.   I started out by going to Scenic World, a place where you can take a sky tram, cable car, or very steep rail car for spectacular panoramic views of the mountains.   It looked like it was an easy walk from my hotel and it would have been, except I took a short cut…     There are hiking trails all over Katoomba and the neighboring village of Leura.   I passed a trail head for Scenic World, Furber Steps, and a few more walks.   I decided it’s much nicer to walk through the woods and ...

After all the hard work on the farm, I decided a holiday was in order and what better place than Sydney.    I found a relatively cheap Airbnb, at least cheap for this very expensive city.   It was cheap for a reason; my first impression was ‘what a dump’!   It was a huge house, with a few apartments, and many bedrooms.   There was a communal kitchen and sitting room as well.   The problem was, there so much dust and clutter.   The location was great, about a 5-minute walk to the Birchgrove ferry (a pretty exclusive area right on the water) and an 8-minute walk to a bus stop.   I did give some serious thought to leaving right away, but I couldn’t find anything else within my budget and, at least my room and bathroom were clean, in spite of the junk they had stored under the bed and on top of the closet.   It ended up being OK; I got to know some of the other guests and we had a pretty good time.   We even had some excitement.   The...