A TRIP TO THE BLUE MOUNTAINS 1. INTRODUCTION

Hello, I have just come back from a trip to the Blue Mountains of Sydney. Despite many birds not showing, and not many birding opportunities, I managed to see one of my three target species (pilotbird, superb lyrebird and rock warbler). This is an introduction to the trip.
ACCOMODATION
We stayed at the Fairmont Hotel. This hotel is fairly accomodating to kids, with special activities available for the school holidays like screenings of kids movies. It has three restaurants, which are Embers, Eucalypt and Jamison's. All of these sell fairly good to excellent food for expensive prices. The hotel is very close to the Blue Mountains National Park and is right next to the Leura Golf Club. There are several walking trails around the hotel which provided a few birds, including one lifer. Three colonies of superb lyrebirds inhabit the forest around the hotel. See 'food' for what I thought of the restaurants and cafes here. The rooms are good.
GETTING THERE
Though the hotel was about an hour and a half drive away from Sydney, we did not get lost while driving there. The roads to some of the tourist attractions are very windy or bumpy, and my sister got motion sickness quite a bit while in the car.
FOOD
We got breakfast in the buffet from Jamison's every morning, which is rather like most good hotel breakfast buffets. On our first night we had some dinner from the Yulefest (Christmas in July) buffet which had an appearance from 'Santa'. This was very expensive. On our second night we had dinner from 'Embers'. The service was very bad and it took ages for our main courses to arrive, again some of the food was rather expensive. However, it did taste very good. On our third night we had a delicious dinner from some friends of ours. We ate all of our lunches at cafes outside the hotel, namely the Cafe 88 at the Blue Hotel on day two and the Bistro at the Jenolan Caves on day three.
SITES VISITED
We visited several different sites. On the second day, or the next post, we explored the FAIRMONT HOTEL CARPARK, as well as part of the KATOOMBA SCENIC BOARDWALK. On the third day we walked around the FAIRMONT HOTEL GROUNDS, and the JENOLAN CAVES VILLAGE. Those were the only sites visited, which may explain why I only saw 20 different species, less birds than what I normally see on my Western Treatment Plant birding trips (normally about 30).
LIFERS SEEN
I saw one lifer, the superb lyrebird. 
BIRD LIST
1. Australian Wood Duck
2. Pacific Black Duck
3. Australian White Ibis
4. Spotted Dove
5. Feral Pigeon
6. Unknown Raptor (may have been a Wedge-Tailed Eagle (got quick view of large raptor flying overhead that 'had markings on it' with a wedge-shaped tail)
7. Rainbow Lorikeet
8. Crimson Rosella
9. Superb Lyrebird
10. Superb Fairy-Wren
11. White-Browed Scrubwren
12. Brown Thornbill
13. Eastern Yellow Robin
14. Grey Shrike-Thrush
15. Australian (Black-Backed) Magpie
16. Pied Currawong
17. Australian Raven
18. Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo
19. Skylark
20. Noisy Miner
SPECIES: 20