The Blue Mountains

August 11, 2008

In the morning I took a two-hour ride on one of the Sydney suburban trains to Katoomba, west of Sydney, in the Blue Mountains. As the train pulled farther up into the hills, beautiful sweeping vistas opened up around me.

Last night, when I told the man working at the hostel reception desk that I was going to Katoomba in the morning, he said, “Why would you go there? It’s freezing!” As soon as I stepped off the train, I discovered how right that guy was. It was only six or seven degrees there... and this was the afternoon. Temperatures during the night dipped to the zero degree mark. Rumour had it that there was snow on the train platform the day before. It’s a good thing I bought the new long-sleeved top in Melbourne. I was going to need it.

Katoomba was developed mainly in the 1930s and still has many buildings from the era. Art-deco design is commonplace here. It’s a cute little mountain resort town, where Sydney socialites went to play many years ago. Now there’s a bit more of a hippie vibe (but nearly as much as there is in Byron Bay).

The YHA is located on the main street at the bottom of a hill in a gorgeous old art-deco-styled hotel. Now its been converted into a neat and tidy hostel. It’s fairly sizeable, but not as big as the behemoth YHAs in Sydney. I usually prefer staying in even smaller hostels since its easier to meet people, but that didn’t really turn out to be a problem here.

I didn’t stay in the hostel long before venturing out to see the big sights in Katoomba: the Blue Mountains. The most famous rock formation in the area were three rocks known together as The Three Sisters. Like most land features in Australia, there was an aboriginal creation legend attached to the landform, but I honestly can’t remember it now. The Three Sisters are quite pretty indeed!


The grand valley opening up behind The Three Sisters is the Jamison Valley. The valley is crisscrossed with hiking trails. There are several ways to descend the sheer cliffs into the valley. The one closest to The Three Sisters is known as The Giant Stairway: more than 800 steps down, down, down. Some of the steps are on metal staircases attached to the cliff face. Others are carved directly into the rock itself.

The top of the valley and the town were cold. The bottom of the valley, however, was sheltered from the winds and much more hospitable. Water collected at the base of the valley and created a lush landscape of trees, giant ferns, mosses, and waterfalls.



I climbed back out of the valley a couple hours later on the staircase near the Leura Cascades. It was a lot of work! I’m definitely out of shape.

After returning to town, I stopped at the Food Co-op to buy some food. They had prices for members of the co-op and non-members. I was surprised that I was able to get the cheaper prices for members due to my YHA Membership. Membership definitely has its rewards. The YHA Membership is not required to stay at YHA hostels, but non-members at YHA hostels have to pay an extra charge. Suckers.

Back at the hostel, I attempted to have a hot shower (I had earned it!), but was only successful having an unsatisfying luke-warm shower. The grand old hotel that now served as a youth hostel was very poorly heated (just like many buildings in Australia). The bedrooms and dormitories had radiators and were comfortable, but the bathrooms, kitchen, and common areas were finger-numbingly cold. Thankfully, there were warm gas fireplaces to huddle around.

That night, I met a whole troop of Canadians around one of the fireplaces. There were three people from Vancouver (I can’t remember their names), and Tracy (a girl from Richmond Hill, Ontario). We also met Sierra, a girl from Kentucky who was studying glaciology at the University of Ottawa. She had recently been doing field-work studying the receding glaciers in the Yukon territory. We declared that she could be an honourary Canadian that night. We played some drinking games with cards (I was drinking my rum from Tonga), then headed over to the RSL Club (Retired Services League) for cheap drinks.

The RSL is like The Legion in Canada... it’s for veterans and ex-service people. If you live nearby, you have to buy a membership to visit there. Travelers only need to sign a guest form and then they can enjoy $3 beers, too. We didn’t get to stay there very late, since it closed at ten. Oh well!

August 12, 2008

I had an ambitious goal today. I wanted to make the big hike to the Ruined Castle -- a rock formation in the Jamison Valley. It’s a six hour hike there and back. This picture is taken from the rim of the canyon. The Ruined Castle is located on the little bump of land approximately in the centre of the photograph.


When I reached the rim of the canyon, I was surprised to find icy frozen puddles on the ground. I hadn’t seen ice (not counting in drinks) for months! Yes, it really was winter here.


This time, I descended into the valley using the Furber Steps instead of the Giant Staircase. It was a beautiful path. In the same valley, the graceful Katoomba falls cascaded to the valley floor. It may be hard to see from this photograph, but this waterfall is VERY tall.


Some of the sections of trail went over very rough terrain and I had to scramble over sharp rocks to proceed. I didn’t have to actually climb hand-over-hand like I did in Tonga, but it was still tricky. It didn’t help that the wind was extremely gusty and tried to blow me over.


So, it was a long hike, but it was really nice. There were very few other people on the trail. I had to climb over, between, and through some big rocks to reach the top of the Ruined Castle itself, but it was worth it. I had my lunch there (a couple bananas, some fruit-strips and some Tim Tams). Some noisy birds wanted to steal my lunch and I had to shoo them away.


There was a little hole in the rock where I could set up my camera and take some pictures using the timer. Given that they are timer-shots, these photographs turned out suitably cheesy. The drop-off immediately behind me was at least 100 metres straight down.


After walking, hiking, and climbing for nearly six hours, my knee was hurting and I did not want to climb up the side of the valley to get back to town. It’s a good thing that the Katoomba Scenic Railway was there to whisk me back to the top of the valley. The Scenic Railway is the steepest funicular railway in the world, having a slope of 52 degrees! A funicular is a train that ascends a slope and has angled seating so that the riders can sit (approximately) level. The railway was a BIG tourist attraction and paid host to many hundreds of sightseers (especially the ubiquitous Asian package tourists). The ride seems to take less than 60 seconds and costs $10, one way. It’s an expensive way to save about an hour of walking, I guess.


That night, I met up with my drinking buddies from last night. They had gone on a bus tour that day to the Jenolan Caves (featuring some excellent karst formations, according to Sierra). By the night, the three Vancouverites had returned to Sydney. Two of my roomates, Brock (from Texas), and his cousin Thomas (from Sweden) joined us around the campfire for some Jenga action. We didn’t drink very much -- the Jenga was much too intense. We finished off the night with some Trivial Pursuit (I won, of course) and agreed to meet up again in the morning to get cafe lattes.

August 13, 2008

We did, indeed, meet in the morning and headed over to a nice cafe in town. In this photo (from left to right) is Sierra, Tracy, and Brock, and their coffees.


We found this book in the cafe that described people’s personalities according to the birthday. It was very strange, but the book really seemed to accurately describe many people’s personalities, including me. Here is a quote from the book for the February 19 page:

“The tough and determined individuals born on February 19 must fearlessly explore their environment and ultimately follow their inquisitive instincts to far-off worlds. ... February 19 people are usually practical enough to keep their feet on the ground and simply observe. Their more fanciful side can manifest in a love of travel, adventure, and romance...”

Wow! I *do* enjoy traveling! How does the book know?

After the cafe, Sierra, Tracy, stopped off at the St. Vincent De Paul shop to look at second hand clothing before returning to the hostel to check out and grab our bags. We trudged back up the hill to the train station. Tracy and I bought our $12 train tickets back to Sydney. When Sierra tried to buy her ticket, she discovered that she didn’t have her wallet anymore. Her passport was supposed to be in her wallet and she was going straight to the airport to fly back to Canada. Eeep! We still had about 15 minutes before the train was supposed to arrive so Tracy and I stayed with all the bags at the train station while Sierra ran back to the hostel to find her wallet. She made it back just in time for us to catch the train. Whew!

I said goodbye to Sierra when she transferred at Central Station and goodbye to Tracy when I left the train at Kings Cross station. I headed back to the hostel that I went to last time in Sydney: The Pink House. The weather in the afternoon in Sydney was quite warm and it was a good chance for me to do my laundry. I didn’t really do much else that day. I went out for yummy Czech food for dinner that night at the same nearby restaurant that I went to last time I was in Sydney. The more interesting sightseeing would have to wait until the next day.