Okay so I know I was fairly ambivalent about the blue mountains before, but now I've got to say they were awesome! I just wish I could get my pics off my camera and onto here, you'll just have to be patient I guess...It was a pretty eventful day all round. We started with a lovely day here in sydney, but I still decided to pack a coat (must be something to growing up near Manchester)and good job, as we left the city the clouds started to look more and more menacing and finally we hit the wet, and visibility dropped to pretty much zero. Our great guide, Priscilla, didn't let a little bit of rain stop us though, we went off to see an Aboriginal rock carving of a kangaroo, just down some little residential street, a little surreal to say the least, and I couldn't really make it out, I think I was expecting bright colours and paints but it was literally a flat piece of rock with a kangaroo on it. It was like one of those magic eye drawing things, trying to work out which was just the natural erosion lines and features of the rock and what was 'roo, I sort of got it in the end though!
Then we headed off to scenic world, home of the worlds steepest railway (a gradient of 52%)- again, wasn't really sure what to expect and when I had the ticket in my sweaty little palm started to get a bit freaked out, especially when I saw the thing, think that scary ride at Alton Towers but in a rainforest, and nowhere near as much safety equipment- the sign said please hold onto cameras, bags and infants, they may fall out! Again with the understatements!! Needless to say I was pretty terrified the whole way down, the girls from my hostel and I were in the front row, holding onto the seats and each other for dear life!!! When we finally got down there the view was alittle obscured by cloud but was very atmospheric, and a bit eerie. Then off for a walk around the bush, looking out for spiders and falling eucalypt branches (apparently another hazard, in droughts they're able to reroute the water to the trunk and the branches fall off, without any warning- wouldn't want to be stood under one when they decided to do that!).
We sort of saw the 3 sisters rock formation as we were coming up on the cable car, slightly better than the train but not by much... but it was really misty and they disappeared as soon as they appeared. So our trusty guide took us off around the area to find the best places to look over the dissected plateau (not really mountains at all), we didn't have much luck at the little ones so decided to go to the most touristy lookout of the lot, Echo Point. Priscilla gave us 10 minutes to see if we could get a good shot, but most of the people on the bus decided it was too wet and they weren't going to see anything. A few of us went and stood around for 10 minutes though, and managed to get the shot of the day as the mist cleared!!! All the peoople on the bus didn't believe us so we had to show them, I think it's fair to say they were gutted!!
After lunch we went to see Wentworth Falls, and then to the best lookout of all, called Kings Tablelands, there are no safety barriers so the big tourist companies don't go there and we had it entirely to ourselves, a big rock outcrop, with the most amazing view of the Jamieson valley, there are really no words to describe it! Priscilla told us all about its formation, at the highest point is only 1300m above sea level, so not mountains at all, is a dissected plateau, with rivers forming the valley areas, its 15 times older than the grand canyon!!! But the same basic principle, and just so beautiful. It gets the name blue mountains from the haze of eucalypus oil in the air released by the gum trees...
You night think that that was a pretty full day, but before we could finish off with a trip to see real kangaroo's we had a detour to a very nice... Petrol station. We got a flat tyre, so everyone got unloaded off the bus and we got left there for over half an hour till the bus was roadworthy again!!! Good job it'd stopped raining by that point!And onwards to the roo's...
We went to a little camp ground in the blue mountains national park, up and down across rivers and fords, not unlike the Milford rd in NZ in some places, then stopped in a little grassy clearing, to get out and hunt for the roo's. They weren't exactly hard to find, we could literally get within a few feet, so calm and obviously used to visitors, but completely wild. One hopped past me so close I could have reached out and touched it! I decided it'd be a bad idea though, knowing my luck I'd break my arm...
Then we all got back on the bus to race down to olympic park so we could catch the ferry back to circular quay, good idea in principle, but the 5.10 ferry never turned up, so we didn't get on the 5.35 cos there wasn't enough room, hence a drive back into central sydney at rush hour on a friday night- FUN!!
All in all though it was the most amazing day, so I encourage everyone to go, and go with OZ Trails, they only have little buses (no more than 20 at a time) and are very very good, take you right off the beaten track!
Finally (God this is a long one article...) Thanks to Christy for telling me how to change the category thing, much appreciated!!
