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KATIE
Thursday 13th November
Well, we made it to the cricket, and I have to say I actually quite enjoyed it. Not sure how much of that was to do with the fact that it was glorious sunshine, very relaxed and we were sipping on cold beers and how much was the cricket, but then let's not worry about technicalities!! Slightly more of a strenuous walk back as we thoughts we'd take a short cut back and it turned out to be a very scenic and long winded short cut. Oh well, all good exercise! We had a very cool cocktail at the Shangri La hotel up in the panoramic bar and then a really nice dinner along Darling Harbour. Blue Mountains tomorrow!!
Friday 14th November
Took an earlyish train this morning to the Blue Mountains, beautiful day so very lucky with the weather! After dumping bags at the imaginatively named Blue Mountains Hostel we walked through the town of Katoomba to Echo Point to see the lookout over the Three Sisters rock formation and to get some information on walks. Jury was out as to what to do tomorrow as one walk which sounded good would have taken too long and we wouldn't have got back to Sydney early enough and the other walk would be similar to the one we were doing this afternoon.
Equipped ourselves with plenty of water and walked from Echo Point, down the Giant Stairway by the Three Sisters (glad we were going down and not up as it's a very steep 170m descent!) and across the valley floor on the Federal Pass over to Katoomba Falls and Cascades, then along to Scenic World. Views are lovely at the lookouts but other than that it's a walk along the valley floor so the landscape is predominantly trees and bushes. There were lots of Eucalyptus trees (which give the blue hue that gives the Blue Mountains their name) but not much in the way of wildlife (except flies!). Very pretty walk but doesn't quite do it for me in the way the mountain walking does! Wandered round there for a while before heading up the Scenic Railway (the world's steepest railway) climbing something like 205m in 450m of track. (Have to check on those statistics though...). Actually, it was quite fun, you start at the bottom almost horizontal in the chairs and then shoot up pretty quickly! Walked back to Katoomba town (via a very nice ice cream shop - well earned and we hadn't had any lunch...) and back to the hostel. Big thunderstorm, then nipped out for some dinner of salad (healthy) and potato wedges (not so healthy). Pretty tired so had an early night which was just as well as the storm started again and it poured down most of the night!
Saturday 15th November
Caught the 9.55am train back to Sydney as we decided we'd rather have more time there than do another walk that would be pretty similar to the one we did yesterday. After a spot of lunch we took the ferry over to Luna Park (at the second attempt having caught the wrong ferry the first time!). Very strange place, bit like I imagine Canvey Island, and with a strange, freaky looking clown face at the entrance which I'm sure would scare small children! Walked back across the Harbour Bridge which was great, and something I wanted to do while we were here, and then wandered round the Saturday market at The Rocks. Bought a few pressies and thought we'd see what was on at the cinema. Unfortunately nothing interesting was on so we decided it was time for a coffee at the Guylian chocolate cafe on Circular Quay. Great place for some people watching, particularly as it was then about 5.45pm and you can see everyone heading off out for the evening and over to the Opera House all done out in their finery! Some great sights, there's an interesting mix of very cool fashion and incredibly weird fashion! Having a quiet night tonight, need to do a bit of washing and sorting out of stuff before we fly to New Zealand early tomorrow morning (need to catch the 6.30am train from down the road). It's all go!!! I've really loved Sydney and will be really sorry to leave, but then I'm looking forward to New Zealand too so can't complain!! Would definitely like to come back some day! Sydney, I love you!!!
JAMES
Ok, so it didn't quite work out, us becoming millionaires. We nearly did though. Well, we were $85 up after about 5 minutes, at which point Katie suggested cashing up and going home but I thought it would be much more fun to gamble for another half hour and get us into a -$200 situation. B*stard casinos, I am sure they cheat!
But I am pleased to say that after both foolishly gambling away our money and subjecting her to an afternoon at the cricket, Katie and I are still on speaking terms!! Actually, the cricket was really good. It was only a tour match (NSW vs New Zealand) but the sun was shining, we enjoyed a few beers, and there were some decent players on show. Not that any of them (apart from Jamie How) played well. After watching an uneventful 45 minutes, New Zealand's big hitting wicket keeper Brendan MacCullum came to the crease. "It'll get good now" I said, "He's really good, slaps it about a bit!" 6 balls later he was trudging back to the pavilion having scored 3 runs. Muppet. Good to see some cricket in Oz nonetheless though.
Another early start yesterday as we headed up to the Blue Mountains. Katoomba is in the heart of the mountains, only 70 miles from Central station, although the painfully slow train makes the journey take 2 hours! We found ourselves a hostel near the station (yes, a hostel - we are proper backpackers you know, it's not all 5 star Travelodge luxury for us!) and walked the mile and a half down to Echo Point. I wouldn't really say mountains are the right word. It's not like Switzerland where the towns are in valleys and the mountains rise up either side of you - rather the towns are on high plains (Katoomba is at 1000m, according to the new altimeter watch I purchased in Hong Kong, so have been doing altitude checks every 5 minutes just coz I can!) and there are huge valleys between them. Standing at Echo Point looking out over 3 Sisters and the Jamison Valley was a bit reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. Obviously smaller, and more forested, but the same sort of thing.
We walked down past the 3 Sisters rock formation to a path running along the side of the valley (alt. 775m) and walked about 3k along to the Katoomba falls (alt.765m). From there we took the worlds steepest Scenic Railway up to Scenic World (alt.955m) (ok, I'll quit with telling you the altitude every 5 minutes) and then walked back to Echo Point. All in all it was only about a 5k walk but we were fairly pooped by the end of it (marathon fitness well and truly gone by now!) so had to refuel with big ice creams on the way back to the hostel...
Katoomba itself isn't anything to write home about - in fact you could call it a bit "down at heel". I guess most of the tourists bus in on day trips from Sydney as there weren't many out and about in town at night. Had a nice salad (?!?) each for dinner and hit the sack early. Only to be woken several times throughout the night with what sounded like monumental howling gales! Weather has certainly changed back in Sydney today, much cooler.
We had planned to stay in the Blue Mountains for a second days hiking today but decided that, unless we were going to day a 6 hour hike, we had pretty much exhausted all our options and we still had things we wanted to do in Sydney so we caught the train back early(ish!).
Due to engineering works the train only went as far as Penrith where we had to switch onto a coach to Sydney. On the drive back, I was thinking about how Australia is much more similar to England than America. They drive on the proper side of the road, not every road has 3 lanes, most even have bends in them, the cars are proper sizes - not all big pickups, they have High Streets with pubs rather than malls with "Neighborhood Bar & Grills", they use English English (centre not center), they love a good drink, and topless sunbathing is positively encouraged let alone banned. I guess the last two points are symptomatic of a country founded by convicts as opposed to a country founded by puritans!
This afternoon we took the ferry over to Luna Park (well, after getting the wrong ferry to Taronga Zoo first of all) which is a strange old place. Kind of kitsch, kind of freaky, kind of cool in a weird way. We didn't go on any of the "rides" though, although Katie wanted to go on the spinny-round-make-you-sick ride... Walked back over the bridge for yet more cool view of the Opera House and city, did a spot of shopping at the market, and then had a big fat ice cream milkshake on Circular Quay.
Can't wait to go to New Zealand tomorrow, it has always been top or almost top of my list of countries to visit, so bring it on! Glad we are going somewhere cool as it will take something special to beat Sydney!!
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