Today was my excursion to the Blue Mountains. Why are they called the Blue Mountains, you ask? Well, they are called the Blue Mountains because of the eucalyptus trees. The leaves have a blueish color.
I rode the bus then train to a hotel in town where this tour company picks up. I was the second person on the mini-bus. In the end we had a full bus of 20 people which included a family with a set of 9 year old triplet boys (Trip, Trey, and Troy—all names meaning three). They caused us to get a bit of a late start because they got lost getting to the hotel they were to be picked up from.
Once we were all present and accounted for, we headed out of the city by driving over the Harbor Bridge. So, now I have been on the top of the bridge, on the bridge surface, and under the bridge!
It was about 50 minutes until we stopped for a stretch break (some of us had been on the bus longer than others) in Glenbrook. At that point, we were sort of in the Blue Mountains National Park. The road is not part of the park, and there are places where people live, but it is the National Park.
Our second stop was at Scenic World near Katoomba. We filed off the bus and onto a gondola that took us over a deep valley. There was a waterfall, but I can’t remember if it was Katoomba Falls. The views were spectacular! We got our first glimpse of the Three Sisters. The Three Sisters are rock formations. One of the aboriginal Dreamtime stories about the Three Sisters says that there was once three beautiful sisters from the Katoomba Tribe, Meani, Wimla, and Gunnydo. They fell in love with three brothers from the Napean Tribe. The two tribes did not get along, and because of the relationship of the three sisters with the three brothers a war broke out among the two tribes. The medicine man from the Katoomba tribe cast a spell upon the three sisters that turned them to stone to protect them from the war. When the war was over, the medicine man would cast another spell to reverse the first spell. There was one problem. The medicine man was killed in the war, and the three sisters remained in stone, and there they remain today. That’s one of the stories of the Three Sisters. There are others.
So, where were we...oh, yeah, we did the gondola to the other side of the valley. Far below, we could see and hear the sulphur crested cockatoos flying about. On the other side, we boarded the steepest cable car ride. This cable car rail was built to bring the coal up from the bottom of the valley. The coal mine shut down a long time ago when they realized how important it was to preserve the area. The ride down was indeed quite steep. You could have the bench in “laidback” position, or “cliffhanger” position. My seat mates wanted the cliffhanger position. The only thing keeping me in my seat was the fact that my knees were jammed up against the cushioned bar in front of me. Like I said, it was steep!
At the bottom, we got out and had a walk through the rain forest on the valley floor. The reason it’s a rainforest is because a huge cliff shades that area of the valley floor, so there is not as much sun. It was quite jungly. We were hoping to see a Lyre Bird, but there were none to be seen today.
At the end of our walk, we had to get back out of the valley. We took a different style of cable gondola back to the top. At the top we went straight to the bus.
Our next stop was the Waradal Cultural Center and Echo Point Lookout. At Echo Point we could get a much closer view of the Three Sisters. We then had some time in the cultural center before the live show. I perused the gift shop.
The live show was pretty cool. It was four aboriginal tribe members who were all related (2 brothers, and the sons of one of the brothers). They explained how the didgeridoo became an instrument, explained the body painting, and how that evolved into the aboriginal artwork of today, and did some aboriginal dances, and songs. In all, it was a 30 minute show. Afterward, we could get our photo taken with two of the guys. It was fun.
Back on the bus, on our way to where we would have lunch in Wentworthville, we stopped at another lookout called Boar’s Head. It’s called that because, well, there’s a rock formation that looks like...you guessed it...a boar’s head. Again, it was a spectacular view. There was also a great echo. The boys had fun yelling.
Lunch was a nice meal at the Grand View Hotel. We were given four options. I chose the spinach and cheese in phyllo and a salad. Dessert was a custard with a mango sauce.
After lunch, we had about an hour drive to get to the Featherdale Wildlife Park. I took a nap on the way. So did a lot of the others.
Featherdale was fun as it was a wildlife park of just Australian animals. We could get our photo taken with a koala (sure, why not?), and feed the kangaroos (of course I did that too). They had lots of birds. I finally saw the black cockatoo. I didn’t pay much attention to the animals I had seen in the wild (wombats, echidnas, wallabies, and pademelons). I did a quick run (almost literally) through the reptile house. There were a lot of snakes...yikes! In fact, it seemed to be almost entirely snakes. Just one lizard.
On the way to our final activity, we drove through the Olympic Park from the Sydney Summer Olympics in...2000??? The cool thing is that the entire park is still in use. They turned the athlete housing into apartments, and have made numerous parks. There are several restaurants, and of course, the big venues are still operating (concerts, sporting events, etc). You can even go swimming in the Aquatic Center.
So our last activity was a ferry ride down the Parramatta River back to Circular Quay. It was about a 40 minute ride. It was dark by the time we arrived. I headed to the train, and back to Marrickville. Patch had made some delicious soup for dinner. It was a great end to a very full day.
I’m really glad I did this as a tour. I think if I had tried to do it on my own (you can take a train there), I would not have known all there was to do (nor would I have been able to do it all from just taking the train). As usual, it was definitely worth it!
Tomorrow, I’ll head back I to the city for one last adventure, then take the train to the airport for my 2:00 flight back to Melbourne.
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