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| Blue Mountains |
Mar 2 was pretty much a travel day. We left for the airport at 10:45 to catch the 12:15 flight to Sydney. Since we lost 1.5 hours due to the time difference, we landed in Sydney around 4:30. We picked up the rental car and arrived at our hotel in Blue Mountain at 7 after going through Sydney's rush hour traffic. We called it a day after picking up some grocery and dinner.
Our hotel package included a full breakfast, and it was good to get sausage/bacon/eggs as we had not had those for a while. We started off our Blue Mountains touring at the Sublime Point Lookout. The view was quite impressive as we had the whole valley in front of us, and the exposed rocks were interesting. Blue Mountains got its name because of the blue-greyish tinge caused by the reaction of the emission from the eucalyptus forest and the ultraviolet radiation. Next we went to the information centre at Echo point. This spot provides the best view of the Three Sisters - rock formation due to erosion. Unfortunately the lighting was all messed up because of the time of the day. We took a short hike to one of the Sisters and found the rock formations quite interesting.
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| Katoomba Falls |
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| layers and layers of geological history |
Our next stop was the Katoomba Falls. It was an easy walk to the cascade and the falls is quite nice. Since we were still full from breakfast and it was only 11:30, we decided to take the Furber Steps to the bottom of the valley. It was a surprisingly interesting walk. The track zigzagged along the side of the mountain, and there were a couple of detours to sections of the Katoomba Falls. The detours usually end up in spots where the waterfall hits some flat surfaces, and provide a spot for one to sit back and admire nature. There were not too many people on the track as there were some steep steps along the way. We were literally walking inside a rain forest, and the shade provided by the canopy make it a really pleasant hike on a hot day. It was a pity that we were not into geology, otherwise we would have a ball deciphering the different layers of earth over millions of years as we went down the side of the mountain.
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| hauling some coal |
When we were walking down, it was in the back of my mind that we would need to walk back up, and I was not looking forward to that! Luckily when we were halfway, we saw signs pointing to the base of Scenic World - an amusement park which offers a ride back up via a cable car ... what a relief! We got to the bottom of the valley and started a comfortable walk on a 2.4 km boardwalk in the rain forest. There used to be a small coal mine in the area, and so there are various coal mining displays to show what life was like back then. They also have a number of sign posts pointing out vegetation and rock formations.
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| Jane in action |
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| Katoomba Falls and the 'broccoli' trees |
Since it would cost us about half the price of a day ticket for a single ride, we opted to get the day ticket so we can do all three rides in the Scenic World - railway, skyway, and cableway. First we took the cableway back up the valley, then the skyway across the cliff top and got the best view of the Katoomba Falls. It was a short walk back to the car, and we had our smoked salmon lunch in the shade. It was after 3 pm when were done, so we decided to go back to Scenic World to enjoy the other rides. The railway was something else - it started slowly from the station, then within seconds, we entered a pitched black tunnel with a very steep incline. The steepness was probably similar to that of the tram in Hong Kong, fortunately it was not going that fast. We then proceeded to complete the rest of the boardwalk at the bottom of the valley, and we came across a section where there were a lot of vines growing among the trees. After seeing a sign that said a 20mm thick vine is strong enough to hold up a car, we all went for our Tarzan and Jane posts. We also decided to take the skyway one more time. Since it was the second last run of the day, the operator stopped the cable car practically in front of the Katoomba Falls so we could take a real close look at it. The cable car has a glass bottom which allows one to look down - 274m from the tree top; and from that angle, the trees looked like broccoli. Also the scenery looked a lot better from high up than below.
We went back to the Echo Point Lookout to try to catch the sunset, but we were a tad late; still the Three Sisters looked better than they did this morning.
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| Three Sisters |
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