Blue Mountains YHA, Katoomba, NSW

Arrived here after midnight on Thursday - actually Friday! Wendi and I had driven 600 km from Thredbo in the Snowies. We'd left Thredbo at 4.30 p.m. after climbing Mt. Kosciuszco earlier that day - 13 km walk to summit and back from chairlift. We'd intended to make an early start on the first chairlift at 9.00 a.m, but had to hang about in Geehi (our overnight stop) waiting for someone to get us started with jump leads as we had a flat battery! Then to the service station in Thredbo, where we were lucky to find that they had a battery (one of two) of the right size and voltage. If they had not had one in stock we might have had to wait for up to 3 days for one to be delivered! There are a lot of 'ifs' in here: if two cars had not come along shortly after the battery went flat at Scammell's Spur Lookout ... ; if we hadn't managed to turn the camper van around to face downhill and then bump start it ...; if there had been noone camped at Geehi with some jump leads ... But luck was with us and we did all that we had set out to do!

Met up with Irene and Viv over breakfast yesterday. They had been here since Monday or Tuesday. Irene left after breakfast to go on to her cousin's at Dubbo (where Viv is going on to today). I then moved into the bed that Irene had vacated in their private room (with en suite bathroom). This was a great improvement on the 4-bed dorm I'd shared the night before, where someone had poked me in the middle of the night to stay 'you're snoring'! Bear in mind that I'd arrived after midnight and had to get into a top bunk - and make it up - in darkness, only to be woken up after a couple of hours sleep. Trying to get out of the bunk to go to the toilet was interesting as someone had hung their clothes over the accessible end so I had to access my bunk via the end which was pushed up against a wardrobe!