After visiting Scenic World at Katoomba on Sunday (yesterday's image) we stayed the night at the Fairmont Resort in Leura, a Blue Mountains suburb about 10km to the east of Katoomba. (Incidentally, if you stay in the Blue Mountains I do recommend Silk's Brasserie in Leura Village for dinner. Be sure to book early. Oh, and order the warm bitter-sweet chocolate fondant served with vanilla-bean Chantilly cream and black cherries. There's a 20 minute wait while it's prepared but it’s worth it if you survive the hyperglycaemic and kilojoule shock as the hot liquid chocolate oozes out onto your plate.)

Fairmont has had a chequered history recently. Originally owned by the Peppers chain (which was owned by MFS, a company that hit major turbulence in the GFC), it was flogged off to new owners who, by most reports, ran it into the ground. Changing management and ownership again in early 2010, attempts have been made to turn it around and certainly the quality of the place was returning to its best based on what we saw. That's if you leave aside a missing puck from the air hockey table in the games room, which was exceptionally annoying. (Especially as someone had just fluked a 3 all draw in foosball and was about to get her comeuppance on the air hockey table.)

Sunday had been quite warm but thunderstorms came through in the afternoon. These settled into a mist that hung around the mountains all night and until we departed late in the morning.

This is a shot from the room's window showing both the mistiness of the air, and the carpet of flowers deposited on the ground of the track that ran past below.

Edit, March 2025: Silks Brasserie subsequently moved to Silvermere Guesthouse in Wentworth Falls, a couple of townships away from Leura. Sadly (for visitors) the owner retired and closed the place for the final time in March 2023. Yest another reminder (if one were needed) about how ephemeral things can be, especially when updating photos from a decade and a half in the past.

Fairmont Resort is still there, though, with a rating of 4.1 on Google Reviews while on TripAdvisor... oh, wait, it's 2025. Nobody cares about TripAdvisor any more, another thing that would have been unforeseeable from 2011.