Joe's tour of the Blue Mountains

The City of Sydney provides pensioner tours throughout the year,they have visited,Cronulla, Palm Beach Woy Woy,Cobbity Village, Blacktown ,Windsor,Stanwell Park,Lane Cove National Park and last week the Blue Mountains
 We leave from Bathurst Street city after Joe has checked the manifest to ensure no stragglers are missing.Pullout time is 9Am and as always we are on time heading down Pitt Street to Railway Square, we plunge into heavy traffic on Parramatta Road,one of the oldest road in Sydney.

Joe had a full load of 22 people from various ethnic groups,all chatting and enjoying their day out.We proceeded along Parramatta road to Concord where we turned off,on to the expressway where speed picks up to over 80 k's an hour .
At St Clair we pulled into McDonalds parking lot for morning refreshments,and the staff handle the elderly with grace and civility,I like some of the others ask for Senior coffee and are issued a ticket no 801 and told to proceed to the coffee machine where we are given our order in line.
Its a fine sunny day and I take mine to the bus steps where I chat to Joe,who has the knack of making everyone content.We are told its a 10 minute stop and then back in the bus for the steep climb up the mountains

After leaving St Clair we crossed over the Nepan River,the sight was beautiful with Jacaranda trees in full bloom displaying their purple colors at their best.In fact the mountains were a great sight of green vegetation,all transpiring in the mid day sun.
We passed by the towns of Glenbrook, Blaxland Springwood Faulconbridge, Linden (where I spotted a mates real estate office Noel Hayes,now up for sale ) like all of aged persons there comes a time when we are considered too old to work.
Onward west passed Hazelbrook Bullaburra, Wentworth Falls, Leura,Katoomba,Medlow Baths to our ultimate destination Blackheath.

We turned off the highway and headed east to the Heritage Centre where there were various displays of the area.Joe sorted those in the group who wanted their picnic spot and the balance of the group headed down the path through the bush to Govett Leap about 20 minutes walk.what we saw

                                                     SPECTACULAR !
After the excitement,it was double down,back into the bus and drive the mile back to Blackheath for lunch.In Govetts Leap road there are several outdoor eating area which on a calm Spring day are ideal to eat ones Oslo lunch and absorb the village atmosphere,If time presents the age old sport of Real estate window perusal is available and if one has a spare $600,000 one can buy a trendy weekender,

Enough of this fantasy,its time to go.Joe swept up his 22 visitors and headed east to the big bad city after a pleasant days outing.Well done Joe.
By Tim Williams