Blue Mountains

On the morning of Thursday February 28, I awoke to a bright sky after several days of rain. The beautiful morning inspired me to take a trip our to see the Blue Mountains. I had been waiting for a day like this to make the trek because everyone I spoke to told me to go when the skies were clear and the views were spectacular. They were not kidding.

When I woke up it was eight o'clock in the morning. I jumped out of bed and grabbed the bible (Frommers) and looked to see if there were any good tours going to the Blue Mountains from Sydney. There were several. So I called the first one. When I rang, however, the woman at the other end of the line informed me that the bus had just left and that they would be going through Kings Cross any minute. She put me on hold and checked to see if I could make the bus. After listening to the musak for a spell, she came back on and told me, "You would not be able to make this trip, but our tours run every day. Can I book you on a trip tomorrow." Sadly, I had to decline because Mardi Gras was that coming weekend and after that I was heading up to the Sunshine Coast.

Determined to still make the trip, I phone a couple of other tour bus groups to no avail. I decided then I would have to get creative. I jumped on-line and found the train schedule. I dressed, packed my camera, a pad and pen, sunglasses and sunscreen and headed out the door. I got the train stain and told the man, "I want to go to the blue mountains." Within minutes, I was on the train.

I am quite glad I had to take the train as it was a very inspiring and enjoyable two hour trip. The entire trip I took in the sites (which were mostly suburban Sydney, listened to my MP3 player (a must when traveling I have found) and wrote in my pad.

When I arrived in Toowoomba, a great little town in the Blue Mountains, I debarked from the train. Immediately upon exiting the train stains was a tourist information center. There I bought a ticket to ride a self guided bus tour (it stops at all the major attractions and you get off and on when you want to).

First stop was at the old mining depot where they have a train that takes you up and down the mountain at an alarming angle (like 50 degrees or something--very steep). I boarded the train and went about half way down the mountain. There you could see the beautiful mountains and valley below.



At the end of the track, I started trekking down a beautiful path through the rain forest. The path went along the mountain past a couple of beautiful waterfalls and amazing foliage. After finishing that hike I took another train which led through the old mining village and up to a gondola type ride that took me up to the top of the mountain. The views were spectacular.

At the top of the mountain, I took another gondola type ride over the huge valley past one of the great waterfalls I had hiked past below.


View of the falls from the gondola

After the gondola ride, I had some lunch and boarded the self-guided bus again. I went to the site of the three sisters. The three sisters is a legendary mountain formation. The aboriginals believed that the rocks were three daughters of a witch doctor that temporarily turned them to stone to protect them from a ogre of sorts. He then turned himself into an animal (which I cannot remember which kind) to escape the ogre. However, when the witch doctor was fleeing the ogre, he dropped his magic stick and could not reverse his spells once he reached safety. Thus, the legend goes that you will often see the animal (which I cannot remember the name of) scouring around looking for the magic stick to save his three beautiful daughters. His beautiful daughters are truly fantastic.

The Three Sisters

I hiked on several of the trails around the blue mountains seeing various sites, including going onto one of the three sisters. I could walk across a small foot bring to a landing on the closest sister. The ordeal was not that challenging or exciting. The view from further away was more interesting. On one of the trails, I got lost and could not find my way back to the place where the bus picked me up. I kept walking following a very poor map until I came back to the town. There some towns people taking a leisurely walk about town gave me directions to the doll museum.

The doll museum was a place where the bus would stop and I could get back on track. Fortunately, the bench to wait for the bus had a fantastic view of the mountains because the museum itself did not look very interesting. Sitting on the bench and taking in the view of the mountain, I removed my pad and pen from my bag and started writing again. The bus came about forty-five minutes later and I had some great writing done. I took the bus back into town and walked around the town a bit ending up at a small pub busy with travelers from all over the world. I bellied up to the bar and ordered a schooner of VB (a pint of Victoria Bitter--one of the best Australian beers, Australians don't actually drink much Fosters despite the persuasive advertising in the states that convinces us otherwise. I then sat down at a table and continued to write. Three schooners later, I realized I had to hurry to make the next train back home because I had a major party to go to that night. I wrote on the train the entire trip back as well. The project I was working on is somewhat a secret, but I think it will pretty good. I needed to include it in here because the Blue Mountain trip was the inspiration that drove it.
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