All amateur photographers should keep an eye out later this week for a new competition to be run by the Western Advocate.

Bathurst’s Best Buddies will be a photo comp that gives you the chance to celebrate your best friend while also going in the running to win some great prizes.

Century 21 Bathurst is the major sponsor of the competition and they’re generously putting up $500 to be spent at Harvey Norman as the first prize.

All submitted photos will appear in galleries on the Western Advocate website and our own photographers will then select the top 40 finalists.

From there the competition will be turned over to our readers who will have the chance to vote for their favourite entry.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

More details to come later in the week.

WALKING around her previous neighbourhood of Newtown, the scariest thing Sara Joyce might have previously seen was a hipster with a mean neck tattoo and a bushranger beard.

But the 40-year-old had a close encounter with something far more disturbing on Wednesday, just one month after moving to the Blue Mountains: she said she was stalked by a giant cat while bushwalking near Martin’s Lookout in Springwood.

Ms Joyce said the animal was too large to have been an ordinary feral cat, saying “it was much bigger”.

Her mobile phone’s battery had died so she couldn’t take any photos, but she is unconcerned if skeptics doubt her tale.

“I don’t give a toss if people believe me or not.”

DON’T say we didn’t warn you: This Sunday is Mother’s Day and your mum deserves better than cold tea and burnt toast.

It’s time to break out the piggy bank, count your pennies and find mum something nice.

And if your money won’t stretch that far, try giving mum a bit of a sleep-in on Sunday morning.

She’ll love you for it.