We have driven for hours to and from the Blue Mountains, we have wound our way through the foothills of the Blue Mountains, we have hiked through a rain forest in the Blue Mountains, we have been to several outlooks in the Blue Mountains, we have ridden two cable cars and a train through a valley in the Blue Mountains, but we have yet to see the Blue Mountains. As far as we are concerned, they may not even exist.
The lowest point of our excursion to the Blue Mountains happened about an hour and a half into our journey. Katie had been complaining of not feeling well, and after a particularly curvy stretch of road, she leaned forward and whispered that she had just thrown up. We were on a tourist bus with a dozen or so other passengers, all of whom, I noted gratefully, appeared to be asleep, but we felt very trapped. I handed back my supply of tissues, located a spare jumper and jacket for her, and told her she would just have to endure. James had already been begging to return to the hotel for at least an hour, and as we still had eight hours remaining before our designated return time, I acknowledged to myself that booking this trip had been a big mistake.
Several hours later, our attitudes had been completely transformed. The rainforest hike, our exuberant tour guide Dave, and a trio of rides through the mist saved the day. In spite of never seeing the mountains themselves, we returned feeling it had been a (mostly) wonderful day.
After the obligatory stop for morning tea, which sadly included neither tea nor coffee, we stopped at a national park to look for kangaroos. This is a popular stop for overseas visitors, of course. I'm not sure if the Australians in our group even got off the bus to have a look.
Our guide pointed out a wombat burrow nearby, and even climbed in to help demonstrate the size of it. He didn't let the kids go in, explaining that he did not care for them to meet up with a potentially angry wombat.
Wombat tracks:
Next stop was an unofficial lookout, unofficial because there are no safety rails or warning signs about the steep drop into the valley below. Dave cheerfully cautioned us, explaining that he would rather not wait around for an ambulance. He then proceeded to perch himself on the edge that juts out in the picture below and to recommend it as the best photo opportunity of the day. I desperately wanted to pose, but Ross would have none of it. He played the role of anxious mother hen, constantly shooing the kids (and me) away from the edge and back toward the bus.
Our fourth stop of the day (we were yearning for lunch by this time but had to keep going) involved a hike to see a waterfall. Because of the weather, we had the privilege of hiking an extra long distance that involved three hundred steps downward in the steady rain through numerous muddy puddles just to get a glimpse of the water. At one point James announced, from his perch on his father's shoulders, "This is not so fun. I am soaked, hungry, cold, tired, and I just want to go home." He was not amused by the sympathetic chuckles from the other grownups, most of whom seemed to echo his sentiments. We all persevered, however, and by the end of the walk back up to the bus, no one could complain of being cold in spite of the bus thermometer reading a mere 40 degrees F.
Katie managed a smile in front of the water fall.
We saw nothing at this overlook, but it was nice to get out of the rain for a bit. After this point, things brightened considerably, due in large part to a satisfying lunch in a Chinese restaurant in the mountain town of Leura. From Leura, it was a short drive to a valley that in the late 1800s was home to an active coal mine. It has since been turned into a tourist trap with its cable car rides and what is proclaimed to be the world's steepest railway. It was a trap well worth falling into, we decided, in spite of the rain. Our guide showed us the brochure which proclaimed the rides to be "even better in the rain." "That's a load of rubbish," he confided, "but you may as well try them since you are here." His unflagging cheerfulness diminished somewhat at this point as he predicted we would be unlikely to see anything at all. Thankfully he was wrong.
Shivering as we waited our turn, we were all dismayed to realize that the cable car was open to the elements. The fog lifted slightly, however, making us forget how cold we were, and revealing the outline of the famous Three Sisters.
We enjoyed a very brief moment of sun in the distance.
Our second ride involved a closed cable car, which was a good thing due to the very steep drop on our initial descent into the valley.
Down in the valley our fearless leader, still in short sleeves, provided an endless stream of commentary on our trek through the rain forest. He asserted that the mining rope left on the ground since 1890 was authentic, as was the labeled termite nest, but told us not to believe any part of the recreated display of the Katoomba Mine. Not one part of it was as it would have been originally, he claimed.
For all but Sophie, the most thrilling part of the day involved a roller coaster-like ride on the world's steepest railway. Originally built to haul coal up from the valley, it was eventually re-opened for the sake of tourists who continued asking for rides long after the coal mine had closed. I handed the camera over to Ross as a frightened Sophie required my full attention. He proceeded to photograph all of the gray hairs in the back of my head as we raced up the mountain, but I found one that was sufficiently blurry to disguise most of them (above). A sign recommended that children not be placed by the outer side, but that and a wimpy chain rope were the extent of the safety precautions. Dave, always cheerful, told us that if the brakes failed, we would have nothing to worry about as none of us would survive the fall. I am beginning to suspect that most Aussies involved in tourism get genuine pleasure out of frightening their gullible, overseas patrons.
The adrenaline from this ride lasted us through the two and half hours it took to get back to our hotel. Dave placed us on a Captain Cook Ferry, where we had our first opportunity of the day to enjoy coffee. Desperate for a caffeine jolt earlier in the day, I had dashed into a cafe in Leura when we were meant to be back at the bus. Feeling a bit guilty, we gulped it down before re-joining our group five minutes late, and perhaps because of the children, we avoided the threatened lecture from Dave, who is a stickler for punctuality.
As we sailed back into Circular Quay on the Parramatta River, we were able to watch Sydney light up in the falling darkness, a most satisfactory ending to a very long day.
WoW! What an adventure!!! Seriously - your lives are so full :) I am not sure I would have made it through the cable car and roller coaster train ride! The only thing that gets me through roller coasters in the over the shoulder harness! I am certain I would have feigned sickness and stuck with another day around Sydney. But I am glad I can experience the Blue Mountains through your eyes instead. The pics of the kids by the coal mines are really cute.
Actually, maybe I could have braved the mountains if I knew the ride on the boat into Sydney as it lit up fot the evening was the ending - that would have been worth the rainy cold day - a memory like that would go over and over in my head as one of the best days in my life!
Posted by: Suzanne | 06/17/2011 at 10:34 PM
Gorgeous! Um. The vomiting on the tour bus, my blood pressure got up a little just thinking about it, but all's well that ends well. Great times, regardless.
Posted by: Shanda | 06/30/2011 at 08:29 PM