The Blue Mountains: Day 2

The second day dawned.  This was a Good Thing.  I know that there are those who believe that one day the dawn will not come although as a concept that is rather fraught with difficulties given that the dawn appears at a different place each of the seconds of each period of 24 hours.  Anyway this isn't a treatise on the end of the world.

The day dawned with some sun.  In fact we had some sun for some of the day and some heavy rain for some of the day: what is loosely called a mixed bag.  It didn't stop us seeing the sights and being Proper Tourists and doing touristy things.

We started with breakfast at The Hatters Café

I so wanted to buy another hat (or two or three).  I could have bought a bowler, a top hat or even a Homburg.  A good leather Australian bush hat would have done though.

Then to Scenic Park with it's cable car across the valley, and fernicular railway and cable car down to the valley floor.

and it's sculptures

Cable car

Some of the original coal mine buildings have been preserved

and the original open shaft is still open to view

with lots of information boards and some excellent sculptures

The scenic railway is the steepest passenger train in the world with a 52° incline

The Scenic Cable Car is 270 metres above the valley floor

with stunning view over the valley through the rain

The waterfall was impressive in its height

 

 

More cliffs and waterfalls further round the valley rim.

Then we started the long and tedious hawl back along the Great Western Highway and the M4 to Sydney.  It was like this almost the whole way.  As you can see Sydney is still 26 k away and the traffic in both directions was bumper to bumper and crawling.  That might have been expected leaving Sydney for the Blue Mountains given that it was Friday night but the returning traffic was a puzzle.

The Blue Mountains: Day 1

We set off just before 7am for the Blue Mountains on Day 4 of my Australia holiday.  Sydney grinds to a virtual halt during the rush hour and so our departure was timed to try and get us out before the rush.  Given that we were going the opposite way to most commuters I thought this would be easy.  I think naive would be a good term to use about my view.  Anyway we were along the Great Western Highway and well into Blue Mountains at Leura by mid morning.  The weather was pretty dismal and the light wasn't good for photography but we determined to make the best of it and had a reasonable 3 hour tramp as well.

The route from Coogee to Leura

The Jamieson Valley

The valley floor with it's tree cover and miles of bush trails.

The Three Sisters from the East

and later, when the sun was coming out, from the west.

The bridge over to the first of the Three Sisters.  Access to the others was stopped when it became too dangerous.

One of the overhangs on the tramp (with well-placed benches for those needing a rest).

The Cascades

The forest stretched as far as the eye could see

The Three Sisters is the Blue Mountains’ most spectacular landmark standing at 922, 918 & 906 metres tall, respectively.   Located at Echo Point Katoomba, around 2.5 kilometres from the Great Western Highway, this iconic visitor attraction is experienced by millions of people each year. 

The Three Sisters is essentially an unusual rock formation representing three sisters who according to Aboriginal legend were turned to stone.  There are various Aboriginal legends but the one I shall tell you 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.

It was after this tramp that we were fortunate enough to get a tourist bus to take us back to the town where we were staying because the long walk back on the road would have been rather too much for my knee.  Anyway my bus as a mode of transport  proved unfortunate and when the driver had to do an emergency stop my ribs bore the brunt of my fall and one or two were broken or cracked.  C'est la vie.  It wasn't my head or a broken ankle or leg.