The Blue Mountains

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So we thought we would have a day away from the big smoke and head out to the country aka the Blue Mountains. Some friends had been on a trip with Oz Experience and had a great day so we decided to book the same tour. We had to meet at the Oz office. Now the clever thing to do would have been to find out exactly where it was previous to the morning of departure, but we decided to guess! This resulted in what felt like a 3 mile run as we had got off the train at the wrong end of the street and were running late. We were determined to make the bus and ran as fast as our little legs would take us, As Jo spyed the bus, sarah ran out of puff and said "go on without me" it was like a sceen from a war film. Jo reached the bus and turned to see sarah pointing to the office, she needent have run that extra 300 yards. Argh we had made it! Luckily they had held on for us, but it was our fault that the tour ran a little late all day and our tour leader didn't let us hear the end of it.

The Blue Mountains earned their name from the distinctive and deep hue of blue haze not found in any other parts of the world. This effect is caused by scattered rays of light coming in contact with fine dust particles and droplets of oil dispersed from the eucalyptus trees in the valleys. There is an Aboriginal legend about how the Blue Mountains were created. The following is taken from a website, "This legend is synonymous with many aboriginal stories of the creation. The rainbow serpent moved across the country and made rivers and valleys with its long, body. The rainbow serpent went back to its hole in the ground and summoned all the animals, birds and plants, which had been sleeping under the ground. Next, the rainbow serpent determined the rules of conduct, the laws and the structure of the society for all living things on earth. If the rainbow serpent was not happy about how the plants and animals were conducting themselves they were turned into stones. These stones become hills and mountains. Sometimes, the serpent rewarded some plants or animals by turning them into people. So the Aborigines, were created" Hope that wasn't too deep for you!

Our first stop was seeing wild grey kangaroos, these were the first wild kangaroos we had seen in Oz and as they were used to seeing people we could get really close, which was cool. Apparantly kangaroos can retract their testicles when fighting so they dont get damaged! A little kangoroo fact for you! After the roos, we were taken on a guided eco tour around the Wentworth Falls. The scenery was amazing and the falls had good water flow, unlike the ones in Thailand where we trekked for hours to see a dry rock. We stopped for lunch, which was lovely and then headed for the Three Sisters. If you dont already know, the Three Sisters are very large rock formations. There is a legend about how the three sisters were formed too. Apparently, the three sisters were the daughters of an old witch-doctor. They were playing near the edge of the cliff. One of the girls threw a stone which went off the edge of the cliff and into the valley below. One of the cardinal rules in the bush is that you don't throw stones off cliffs. The stone woke up a bunyip. The bunyip was very angry and came after the sisters. The witch-doctor heard the commotion and to save his daughters from being attacked by the bunyip, turned them to stone.

We then headed for the furber stairs walk, which lead us down into Jamison Valley which is quite an amazing sight. The Giant Stairway provides a spectacular entry to the Jamison Valley, descending approximately 300m (1000ft) via more than 800 steps. Luckily we only had to walk down these steps, we were able to catch a cable car ride, known as the Scenic Railway back to the top. This Railway is the steepest incline Railway in the world.

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Photos

The Three Sisters
The sister on the left you can walk down and stand on, cool a!

Tourists!
We love this picture. It was taken on the bridge leading to the one sister which you could stand on.

Comments

[Denise Fielder]

The Blue Mountains
Your Blog just gets better and better girls,keep it up.xx

[Jo]

Joannas barnet
Lovely blog and pics girls but Jo are u developing a Mr Majeeka wiggly tuft on your head??? Ha ha, hope your having fun and stay safe. It all looks amazing, cant wait for the next installment x Jo Brown