Leura

Deb and I were invited to a retreat in the Blue Mountains about 70km east of Sydney.  Since we were headed in the right direction, we left a little early to visit the historic village of Leura and to take in the scenic overlook of the Blue Mountains outside of Katoomba.

Blue Mountains

The Three sisters rock formation overlooking the Jamison valley- if you look really close (where the arrow is pointing) you can see a bridge that you can pay money to walk out on.  We chose not to do that adventure.  By the way, you can also hike to the base of the valley and take a tram up or take the tram both directions.  If you're planning to visit,  just remember, Australia is below the equator so our summer is their winter and temperature was already dropping in May.

Click here to see a panoramic view of the Three sisters and the valley.

Leura

Next stop... the village of Leura.  Deb and I visited Leura the last time we were in Australia and loved it so much we had to go back.
Leura has a lovely downtown area with plenty of boutiques, bakeries, and cafes.  It was a little overcast when we were there but not to worry, we managed to stay warm by visiting almost every shop in town.

We had lunch at a fun cafe

And visited some of our favorite shops-

the most beautiful stationery shop, Elizabeth Rosa

a great housewares store, Leura Gifts and Housewares.  The funny thing about this picture is that if you look close, you can see Debbie's eye's are not looking at the camera, but looking at the hanging sign just above our heads....

That's because as Lorraine was taking the photo a huge bird landed on the sign just above our heads.  This Cockatoo had to be at least 12" tall and there were actually 3 more of them just out of camera range.  Yikes!  We are just not used to large birds flying around wild.  And man, what a sound they make!

So once again, a successful day in Leura.  I didn't get the Olga Burg oilcloth bag I was looking for but I found a few more things to compensate. 

Tomorrow, a visit to Hazelbrook cottage.