Day 124 - Blaxland, NSW part I

Blaxland is a town in the Blue Mountains, 70km west of Sydney, named for Gregory Blaxland who, along with Williams Lawson and Wentworth, led the exploration that discovered a route over the BM in 1813.  They're said to be "blue" from the eucalyptus resin which rises from the forests of gum trees into a blue mist over the hills. We caught the train on the Blue Mountains Line out of Sydney Central Station on Wednesday morning to stay with Sara's uncle, John, and catch up with the family who emigrated back in 1973.

In the afternoon, we visited Warragamba Dam (supplying water to 3.7m Sydney and BM folk) and its excellent Exhibition Hall with history and facts and figures (for example, its storage lake is four times the size of Sydney Harbour, more than 2.3 million tonnes of sandstone was removed and concrete was mixed on site using 305,000 tonnes of cement and 2.5 million tonnes of sand and gravel - it's big... ), and some great views.

Back at the ranch, John's house overlooks the bush, with a raised terrace overlooking a garden visited by all manner of birdlife

and even neighbourhood wallabies...

who visit for breakfast and dinner (they favour banana skins but will graciously accept half a carrot); the wildlife had obviously checked the thermometer though and kept well away when the needle nudged 40°