Sydney trip - day 2

Got up early morning and got ready by 8:00 AM. Weather was alright. We all wanted to start our day with a visit to temple so started driving to Minto – Mukthi Gupteshwar temple (Lord Shiva) which is under ground and constructed in 1999. Surrounding of the temple is green with grass and trees. I came to this temple in 2009 on the same day with mum and dad. Dad liked it so much. This temple is constructed underground (man made guha) as most of the Shiva linga’ are underground. Hindu’s believe that there are 12 jyothir lingas but Nepal people believe that there are 13 and this is one of them. More information on this temple is available from http://www.muktigupteshwar.org/whyaustralia.asp
Best place in the temple is ‘Saraswathi mandhi’ which is also used for meditation. The whole room is filled with fragmented air and special positive energy. After coming out there are statuses of other lord.

After darshan, we all went to the canteen right next to the temple. We had yammy Dosa with chutney and sambar. Had lots of smiles on the cook and the cloth she used to wipe the barbeque. After brunch, we took some photos and went to other temple next to this premise. This temple was renovated and looks very big now. There is also a shiva linga under a tree which reminded me of a Indian temples. I met a Fiji man and he offered me a tea. By the time my family came out of the temple I enjoyed the hot tea under the trees.

Weather looked bit gloomy but still we decided to go to Blue Mountains from Minto as it is only 60 kms from there. Half of the drive to Blue Mountains was in clouds. I felt like I was in Ooty. The Blue Mountains were stunning. They are one of the many places in Australia that’s much easier to see by car. As we wind around the mountain roads, stopping at a cute town here for information and cup of tea. We entered the Katoomba region heading towards the Echo point. The most famous piece of the Blue Mountains can be found in Katoomba as Echo Point. Seeing the Three Sisters from afar is neat, but you can actually hike down to the base of one of the sisters for a dizzyingly spectacular perspective. You can’t actually smell the sweetly mentholated scent eucalyptus when you’re already up in the mountains but the blue haze for as far as you can see is your first indication that the forests in the Blue Mountains north of Sydney contain such a high density of eucalyptus trees that the air is blue with tiny droplets of eucalyptus oil hence the name Blue Mountains. The Blue colour can be seen very clearly on a sunny day. Today is no exception but half of the forest is covered with clouds. Pavani started enjoying the breeze and the location. I am sure any person will fall in love with this scenery.


We reached the Echo point by 12:30 PM parked our car and went straight up to catch a cable car for the view. Before entering the place, we can see the aboriginal sculptures with three sisters and a man having a splash with water. Those statues are naked and when looked with heart can see the art in it. Kids started laughing at those art pieces – they will understand once they grow up. We took photos there from different angles and went inside to buy tickets.
Our first trip was in cable car with glass opening at the bottom to view the whole mountain region. I was here before but I bet I can come any number of times to this kind of place. I am cherishing and enjoying every min of my travel on the cable car looking at the scenic spots, katoomba falls, eucalyptus trees, fern trees, three sisters (mountains formed in three parts) , clouds and most of all with my best half. Got down from the cable car and went out to look and take some pictures. What a view…. Words can’t describe the beauty.

Its one of the 100 things to do in Australia before you die, according to the Australian Traveler.

From there we took a walking trail and god what a beauty. Most of all walking with friends in that walking trail is wonderful. Kids also enjoyed every bit of the walk. We found water falls in the middle of the walk and some one said we can drink those water so kids went and had some water from the falls. After 30 min of walk we waited for ropeway and got back to information center. I wanted to go to cable car one more time as first time I missed half of the beauty covered with clouds. This time I was very lucky.
I got the full view of the mountain region and three sisters from cable car. Pavani missed this as she went on train. Returned back and headed towards Sydney. It was raining heavily so we thought we take a break. We got down at a gas station for a cup of tea. From there went straight to a Chinese restaurant for dinner.

We decided to go to peak point in sydney for views - planetarium. At 8:45 we started from the restaurant and went to city by 9:00 we are so lucky as it was 26th of Jan there were fireworks in darling harbour which we got to see. Very lucky in deed because people are waiting there for this event from almost midday and we got to see the spectacular fireworks just like that. We stopped at some road but the view was not as good as from the main road. When we turned right we realized that there was a big cruise ship waiting there. Jeezz it was massive. We took some photos and went back to hotel room crossing the city crowed.

We did not waste even single min of our day today. Such a great fun.