It ain't gonna rain no more

Sinister Three Sisters

Hello out There,

January 10th

Should we seek permanent accommodation sometime in the future, we probably will have had reasonable experience in the ‘field’. After a week in Australia, we have enjoyed living in a house, hotel (not much actually), cottage and an apartment. It is quite fascinating to live in different abodes and frequently. Suppose you have a deep desire to live in a RV park but have always been too afraid to try. Go for it. You’ll never know until you experience it. Then there is a tent, hut, tree house, sofa for errant husbands, back-seat of the car, kennel and so on. The list is by no means exhaustive. We obviously have a long way to go. Who knows what Mom thinks of it all—we’d hate to find out.
Must be a Rainforest
The current apartment is terrific, much like our former San Diego home, but smaller. It contains one our favorite set of appliances, the washer and dryer. By the time our editor completes her bath each night, her soiled clothes are clean and ready to wear again. Does life get any better than that? Okay, okay. Sure, we all have peculiarities—we just have a few more than average.
Undulating treescape

This reminds us of an incident that occurred in Kalispel, Montana while visiting Glacier Park. On our return from a confrontation with a bear and a long, grueling hike in the park, we darted off to the laundry at the motel. Said laundry comprised one washer and one dryer for 120 rooms, a ‘nice balance’. We noticed that the washer was in use so we were a little despondent. However, after frequent checks, the cycle ended but the owner of the clothing was nowhere to be found. Applying the etiquette used by others, we took the clothes from the washer and placed them in the dryer, making the washer available for our clothes. Pretty straightforward, we thought. A male biker arrived to perform the task and thanked us for the courtesy after hearing our explanation. A little later, a very uptight female biker, the other half of the team, confronted us. “I do not like anyone handling my undergarments,’ she said in a rather nasty tone and continued to berate us. We asked, ‘How long should we wait for you to empty the machine? Some people are rather selfish and leave it for hours.’ Neither of us were happy after this incident. Besides, we don’t even like olive-green ‘undies’.
All’s well that ends well. We patched up our relationship, helped each other complete the washing and parted on the basis that she would let me ride her bike while we would do the washing, next time. “Hell”, some of our best friends are “angels”.

We left Sydney earlier than anticipated as we were becoming claustrophobic in a hotel—it was a nice enough one, though. We traveled to Penrith for a couple of days and ended up in a most comfortable apartment in Leura, in the Blue Mountains region, our hiking destination. The weather has turned sour, continuous and heavy rains persisting. We chanced it yesterday afternoon and were rewarded with a few hours of hiking at the Giant Staircase alongside the Three Sisters. Technically, The Blue Mountains are not a mountain range, but rather deep caverns.
1000 steps to go--outdoor stairmaster
We walked into the valley down a very muddy path and climbed up 1,000 steps to return, most of the time spent in a rainforest. We have now experienced outside rain in a rainforest. The depth was about 1,800 feet with the steps bringing us back to the top without ever leveling off for a breather. As an aside, the Australians are very cautious as there are many barriers and fences along the way. No wonder they can’t beat the ‘All Blacks’.
831 steps remaining

Time to go Home

Cheers,

Jenni and her laundry man, “Drip”