The last days of April

The last few days have been really excellent. I took a ferry over to Manly harbor to interview two Transition people, and through that experience (the ferry part) got many, many pictures of the Sydney opera house as we sailed around it. I will add some of these to Facebook. I also walked across the Sydney harbor bridge (this picture here) which was great, and went to the Contemporary Arts Museum and Museum of Sydney. All in all, Sydney time has been a success.

Tuesday I took a train to Katoomba, a city in the Blue Mountains about two hours west of Sydney. From the second I got off the train, it felt like the mountains-- cold, crisp, smells like campfire and winter-- it was very exciting to be out of the city. Katoomba was so beautiful-- this picture to the right is of the iconic 'Three Sisters' rock that you can see from the outskirts of the town.

My friend Meg came to Katoomba as well, and we did a few hikes in the area, in addition to spending most of Wednesday at the Jenolan Caves. We went on a tour that left Katoomba at 11am, drove an hour and a half to get there in a van with a Spanish-speaking family and two Japanese couples, and then spent about an hour and a half in the Orient cave at Jenolan.


Not only where the caves incredible- the Orient cave is ranked one of the 10 best in the world- on the trip back, our guide Mark randomly took us to see this herd (?) of kangaroos that he knew grazed in a field nearby. How did Mark know this?

All in all, an excellent day. I was also in Katoomba (the main reason, actually) to meet a few people from Transition Blue Mountains. I met Clare and Jed -both great and very helpful- and went to an event the Transition group was hosting, a film about retrofitting homes in the Blue Mtns.
The movie was a little boring but I would say close to 100 people were there! I couldn't believe it! It was very inspiring to see what Transition could look like, and how people were intrigued and inspired by the practicality and hope of this concept.

I am now back in Sydney for my last few days here- I am leaving on the Sunday morning train and heading to Lismore! I think I will be going back and staying with Margaret for a few days, before heading to Bangalow with Michelle for the last week of ISP.

I have so many great pictures from the last week, but a bunch of them are not uploading to Facebook and it is very annoying. Once it starts working, I will add the link here. Hope everyone is doing well!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076811&id=9803563&l=1190a33e12