Blue Mountains, Katoomba
Mist
On a morning that saw Katoomba shrouded in thick fog, I set off for a walk along the Prince Henry cliff walk to Echo Point. The weather forecast for the four days I have booked isn’t looking good, so when faced with bad weather and no views to be seen you have to just get out your waterproofs and set out regardless. I’m glad I did stretch my legs and brave the fog as a very popular and touristy walk was virtually empty apart from a few path workers clearing the bush that had started to grow over the path. Although I could hear vehicles that was obviously quite close by the aspect in front of me was of wetland seclusion. Only the occasional toot of horns, the drip, drip, drip of the pleasant rain hitting and bouncing off leaves and the squawk of macaws calling out to one and other, broke the solitude of my walk. This continued almost all the way to the close up encounter with the Three Sisters rock formation.
From then on I was joined by various sized groups of people all waiting patiently to take their turn to get a quick picture of the view while the fog dispersed enough to allow us to see more than 10 foot in front of us. The silence that I had enjoyed before was then broken by the usual loud group of teenagers sitting on one of the benches in a cut out in the side of one of the Sisters, discussing how drunk they were last night and how many people kissed, while over weight woman gasped and wheezed their way up the steep steps from the Giants Steps. Even my mountain experienced right knee felt the gradient of those steps.
I continued to the visitors centre and world famous view point of the Three Sisters at Echo Point where I stood with finger on the camera shutter button ready just in case the mist lifted up above the rocks to reveal the girls. After a while I gave up and decided that I had seen the formations in their true setting shrouded in mist in true mountain style. Most people will see this area in sunshine after dragging themselves from a coach for their set sightseeing fifteen minutes to snap those pictures then on quick to somewhere else.
After a reasonably priced sandwich, drink and cake deal in a cafe stop that on clear days would have also given people a seat with a view, I walked my way back up to the YHA hostel taking stock and pondering about how many of the outsides of the wooden houses were in such a state of disrepair and if it was due to termites or the lack of disposable income people have for the upkeep due to house prices in Australia.
If you can spend a few days in any place in the world when it is cold and pouring down with rain and you come away liking the place then it’s probably a nice place to be. I find you really get to know the feel of a town, city or village when you have experienced it in bad or unpleasant weather. You can see in the locals’ faces if the place they live is a good place to be when it is engulfed in wet weather. Are they still smiling? Or do they hurry quickly about in order to get to where they are going? Are good indicators of how much the local people like living there.
