The last days consisted mainly of persevering cycling. Hence, there is actually not much super-exciting to tell. Thus, I want to address with this post three main topics that are well suited to summarize these days. As the post title suggest, I begin with the temperature first.

Yes, it had been surprisingly cold the last couple of days and nights. Since Katoomba, about a week ago, the nightly temperature constantly decreased and finally felt to 0°C. My bike and tent were frozen one morning. But I didn’t mind that much after all thanks to my cozy sleeping bag. During the day the temperature hardly reached 15°C and usually was around 10°C. But thanks to the sun coming out every single day, it didn’t bother me, either.

The second topic: the landscape. The well-known Blue Mountains with the main attraction – the rock formation called the Three Sisters – was definitely worth the little detour. I enjoyed the multiple beautiful views into the great green valley from the outer rim. Its kind of comparable to the Elbsandsteingebirge, sandstone, too, though less rocks and peaks. 
However, after a half-day of strolling around between, above and underneath these rocks I felt I have seen enough. Either you do some more exiting things there (e.g. it is one of the few climbing areas in Australia) or its time to leave. I decided to leave and headed for another famous highlight in the Blue Mountains, the Janolan Caves, hidden in a deep idyllic valley a one-day ride away.
After I’ve got to see the main attractions of the Blue Mountains I took a route away from the action – still following a recommendation of Nancy and Dave. It led me straight south and was a nice and quiet section though not scenic or spectacular. Most of the time I cycled through vast farmland, one huge farm after another. One usually only sees the fences, gates, some cattle and sheeps, but rarely its buildings.

And last but not least, a constantly recurring topic I am not going to be tired to write about is, again, Australia’s fauna. Lovely birds, kangaroos and Co. I have already seen dozens of kangaroos and many wombats, too – all dead at the roadside in all imaginable states of decay (you already smell the dead animal 50 m before you pass by). But fortunately I’ve also seen a couple of kangaroos alive and heard them jumping past my tent at night (a funny and strange nightly noise). And, at least around Canberra, there are a lot of rabbits to find that are non-endemic and a story by itself (just google rabbits australia).
Very impressive still is Australia’s world of birds. There are so many flying around, in many different colors, with a big variety of voices, some of them only show itself as a couple others in swarms. Unfortunately I can’t name most of them but many look like special kinds of parrots.
Among these numerous birds, of course, appears more often my favorite bird and best friend: the Magpie. I just love him. I stopped counting how many times they swooped at me. So far, however, none of them were able to really hit my head hard as I saw every attack coming early enough. Either their shadow on the road betrayed them, or they made a specific noise, telling me beforehand ‘eh, I’m coming’, or they just flew over my head in a very short distance without the intention to hit me on their first try.