The journey continues – picture intensive

 

Blue Mountains

So there we were racing to the mountains. Well they are not really mountains just a flat bit of land that suddenly falls away and you have  a valley. They are not exactly what djd and I would class as a mountain. However they have that wow factor and are sufficiently different to anything we have seen before to enchant us.

Getting out of a busy Sydney on a Friday afternoon held its own challenges as well but finally we were out of the rat race.

We had arranged to stay in http://www.jembyrinjahlodge.com an eco lodge. It sounded rather appealing on the web site with the mention of all the wildlife. Just the place for us keen amateur photographers.

We arrived just after 5pm and were directed to our little hideaway with a sunken tub….it was wonderful. Secluded from the others and surrounded by the bush. Sigh wish I was back there now!

After a long travel often you just want to settle and use the toilet and soak in the atmosphere and djd was the first to experience the ……………………………………………long drop!!!!!!!……………………….

Now that’s something we hadn’t really understood would be part of the package!! It’s an eco toilet which effectively means it’s a long drop. No chemicals are used to breakdown the waste just nature and flowing of air. Oh and you were to use minimal toilet paper as it takes a bit to decompose and nothing else to go down there. I must say there is something rather off putting about sitting on a toilet and feeling the breeze from below waft around the nether regions!

DJD was not happy at all about this little feature. Even to the point of the horrors in the night about having to go, but when you gotta go eventually you gotta go!

I digress – we decided to go to the local attraction called Evans Lookout which is at the end of the road and about 1 km away from the lodge.

In the distance you could see the smoke of the fire! In the sky we could see the helicopters!

This bush fire has been burning for 5 days now. We were told that it was sufficiently far enough away not to panic but if we started to smell smoke then maybe we should pack…was he kidding!!! We were not sure and hence a rather apprehensive couple of kiwis who left their bags well and truly packed ready for a quick departure. This spot is a great place to see the valley and apparently a great place for a picnic.

The next day dawned a beautiful day, warm and pleasant and just perfect to go for a walk. After a hearty breakfast – well it was more of a matter of feeding djd cause when he’s hungry he don’t half get grumpy and it was not entirely my fault we ended up going in the wrong direction the street signs were confusing!! We had intended to go to the three sisters and do the walk and then grab something to eat cause it was only a 2 hour walk. We are so glad we ate first….two hour walk my patootie!

The Three Sisters are a formation of three rocks, there are several legends around how they were formed I think the one I like the best is http://www.bluemts.com.au/tourist/thingsToDo/threeSisters.asp

The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, ‘Meehni’, ‘Wimlah’ and Gunnedoo’ lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe.

These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry.

The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters causing a major tribal battle.

As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to  return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come.

 

Now the Blue Mountains is a tourist Mecca, I mean they are driven in by the bus load and taken around Katoomba from tourist spot to tourist spot. It is really well set out and organised but there is just a gazillion of them!

These buses were 3 rows deep at this place

Still we are tourist too…but we decided that we would tackle the Giant Stairway / Federal Pass / Scenic Railway circuit.

Giant Stairway is a very apt name as the lady in the shop gleefully says “its really strange but once you have gone down and your at the bottom your legs are shaking even if you are the fittest person it’s a very strange and unique feeling” hmmm maybe not the best thing to tell djd.

So off we set, first set of steps out of the way and we are standing right beside the three sisters. One look at djd and I start to ask the questions, shall we go back, maybe we shouldn’t do this one? I think it was the fact that he wouldn’t let go of the railing that he had gone kinda of pale and didn’t like heights that made me ask these things. But no he said to press on as he wasn’t going to give up now….I should have taken us back!

986 steps going down and yes your legs are like jelly at the bottom.

Watch where your stepping though!

At one point the steps straddled a drop, there was no cliff rock underneath and a shear drop instead. I think it was probably at that point that djd may have muttered the words “we are so over”

Something we never gave a thought to doing!!

We made it, we did the steps and we were now on the, well not the forest floor but a natural wide ledge surrounded by bush that we would walk our way to the scenic railway which would then take us up on a vertical angle up to the top of the hill. I ha

dn’t fully described the railway ride to djd, well there’s no need to panic him now is there!

It’s a beautiful peaceful place on this earth, but we were a bit intent on getting to the railway and rather regretting that we did not have a picnic that we could just sit and soak up the atmosphere and just eat, but the reality was that if we stopped walking we may not have started again so we had no choice but to just go for it and get to the end destination and get food there.

Surprisingly enough there were quite a few people who followed us down the stairs, well there were quite a few who passed us on those stairs!! However there were a couple of guys who were all geared up to go abseiling…just not on the three sisters! and as they JOGGED passed us for the second time I asked if they had lost their cliff 🙂 "no just up ahead" oh the young and foolish!!

It was a great walk we did enjoy it really and we are so glad we did it. Even if the next day neither of us could walk without experiencing huge muscular pain in our legs. Its was so bad we would cry as we went down steps. Even when getting back to our little retreat and running a hot tub and soaking for hours did not stop the effect of the next days pain, oh the pain. So much pain that when we did get back to NZ we both took an extra days leave as we considered ourselves a fire risk should we have a fire drill in our buildings!! I don’t know if I can describe the amount of pain we suffered the next day!

Still it was worth it to see things like this

Cheeky bird!

Still we made it to the railway ride and looked back from where we had come.

And then you come all this way and see something we have in our own backyard!

And they call this a waterfall !!!!

This railway ride is a vertical ride that goes up the hill and takes you to the top, you start the journey by sitting in the seats that have you reclining backwards and then as you get dragged up the hill you suddenly become vertical and your feet are pressing into the foot rest to make sure you don’t fall out!! It’s a brilliant ride but I am glad I took djd up it instead of down it cause it’s a very steep drop, not so bad being dragged up backwards would be a nightmare dropping forward down it.

And up the top is the junction for the 2 rides, skyline, railway and gondalor and the crowds!! Unbelievable……we ate and strolled outside caught a bus and got taken back to our car where we drove home to our hideaway and had a soak in the hot tub.

The smoke was getting closer! The helicopters were flying right over us, another nervous night ahead.