Planes, trains, automobiles, ferrys

I didn’t write my post last night because I was just too exhausted. We walked. And we climbed. And we walked some more. Mostly on inclines. My calves hate me today…like, really hate me.

Exhibit A

Yes, that is virtually straight up. It was lots of fun heading down but what goes up….you know how it goes.

I’m getting ahead of  myself.

We decided the take the train 2 hours outside the city to visit the Blue Mountains. The mountains get their name from the blue haze that hangs just over the peaks – the blue tint comes from the sap of eucalyptus trees. When I read this I got super excited – ecalyptus! Koalas only eat eucalyptus! We were going to see koalas in the wild!! Woohoo!! But alas, no koalas. 😦 Apparently they don’t live in the mountains. 

We hopped on the train admist the commuters and a few tourists and headed out. Our stop was Katoomba, the gateway to the mountains. There’s a theme park called Scenic World where we rode the original mine train route, took a sky ride over the valley and one other ride thingy I can’t remember right now. 

The hiking was beautiful – it’s a very dense forrest with lots of these jurassic park looking trees. 

For the first hike we were relatively alone in the quiet and the chill. I could have done that all day. But, this is a tourist spot and eventually we met up with the tourist crowd. A lot of them.

Side note: one of the things that has really stood out to me on this trip (so far) is that the stereotype that Americans are loud and rude and obnoxious isn’t exactly true. I’m not going to call out specific countries by name but so far the LEAST rude people  we have been around have been Americans. I  think it’s unfair and unfounded that we have this reputation….. and I have my suspicions on who started it (I’m looking at you, France). Sydney is very diverse and we have encountered tourists from Japan, China, Philippines, Italy, India, Spain, Germany, the US – and most everyone is self-centered and on their own path (literally) but that’s human nature.

Back to the day. I mentioned the hiking earlier. There is no way the pictures can adequately show the pitch to this one particular “”walk”” we did. On the way down I thought ‘It’s going to be interesting trying to come back up this’ and at one point I wanted to give up but I figured we were almost at the bottom so we pressed on.

The start down..down..down

and MORE down

and then back up

But it was well worth it for the views ~~~~~

It felt a little like Stone Mountain in Georgia ….or the Smoky Mountains. Beautiful.

We wrapped up our visit in a little town called Leura. Where I bought this beautiful Australian opal ring 🙂

Erich suggested we take the train halfway back then hop on a ferry for the rest of the ride back to Sydney. Sounded awesome! Coming into the harbour at night with everything lit up. So we exited the train at Paramatta and started walking – pretty much a straight shot to the pier where the ferry picked up.

You know those places in horror movies where there’s one single street lamp, no one is around, and all you hear are crickets and the occasional owl hoot? That’s the pier in Paramatta. We walked up and immediately saw a sign that said the pier would be closed for the next 5 months….and thus began the panicking. By foot it was 4 1/2 hours back to Sydney, by bus – two hours. Uber – 45 minutes. Thank goodness a woman walked up and past us at that moment – I asked her how to get back and she said we were in the right place. Apparently, that sign was for another pier miles away – thanks department of transportation! 

We made one ferry change and were pulling back into Circular Quay an hour later. Starving, tired but none the worse for wear. We made a bee-line for the closest retaraunt that would allow sweaty touristy types in and gorged ourselves silly. I finally had fish n chips. It was no Long John’s, but it was good.

All in all, a lovely, exhausting, invigorating day! Erich is (im)patiently waiting as I write this so we can head over to Manly Beach. Look for him to check into Manly on FB later with some hilarious comment about …..lord, I’m not even going to guess.