Blue Mountains

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After that morning’s little incident, Hillary and I went out in search of a dry cleaner. We found one pretty quickly, and we were lucky because it was right next door to a walk in clinic. The thing was that my foot had been hurting for a few days, and we were worried my toe had an infection. Turns out we were right. After a quick visit, I got a prescription for some antibiotics, and we were off to the races (with a bit of a limp)!

That afternoon we looked a bit around the city, but kept it fairly low key. This was now Hillary’s third time to Sydney, and we had both logged a decent amount of time trekking around the downtown core so we weren’t too concerned about missing anything. We spent the evening in the YHA next door using up some of our internet time working on blogs and catching up with friends. We were back in our own hostel by 11pm, ready for a good night’s sleep to check out the Blue Mountains the next day!

Unfortunately, the night didn’t end there.

Hill and I were in separate rooms due to the high volume of people in our hostel. Not a big a deal. We said goodnight and we went into our own rooms. Her's was a girls' room, and mine a mix with 5 other backpackers with some sort of relation with Ireland (whether being Irish or living in Ireland). In other words, when I walked in the door at 11pm everyone was having a good time with the goon (box wine). I was of course invited to partake, and being such a social animal, I couldn’t refuse. I figured there was no way I was falling asleep with 5 partiers in my room, so might as well join in. We had a good time exchanging stories, heading out for late night food, and watching other people much more drunk than us. Luckily around 3am we called it a night.

Late nights are nothing new to me. The problem was that I had just started antibiotics that morning. You see, I don’t usually drink, and I don’t get sick. So the issue of mixing the two never really crossed my mind. Well, that morning I learned that lesson pretty quickly.

Hill and I got up around 8am, and got ready as fast as we could to catch an early train. Before leaving, I wasn’t feeling so great. I don’t have much experience with throwing up, but let’s say I made up for it that morning. Hillary? Well, she wasn’t all that impressed, but she was kind enough not to lecture me. We were on the train by 10am. And, well, I was in the train washroom by 10:02am. Hill gave me some Gravol (which she had brought to Australia specifically for me), but it was too late for that. That stuff tastes awful going down and even worse coming up.

Eventually we make it to Katoomba, the stop for the Blue Mountains. Still feeling woozy, we checked in to the hostel, which was really quite nice. After plenty of apologizing, I went straight to sleep and Hillary tried exploring a bit of the town. Unfortunately it was so foggy she couldn’t see anything! She walked down to the lookout to see one of Australia’s famous landmarks, the Three Sisters, and saw nothing but a wall of fog. Between the fog and the train ride, not the best part of our trip for the poor girl.

But there was a sliver of light. After a couple of hours of sleep I was feeling good as new. We grabbed some pizza, and decided to give the lookout another go. We’d be leaving to go back to Sydney the next day, and this could be our only chance to see the spectacular view. We made our way back to the lookout, but it was still pea soup out there. We didn’t leave right away though, and after half an hour of peering out into nothing, it started to clear up! We soaked in the scenery and took plenty of photos. We were really happy with what we had seen, and anything more would be bonus.

Well, it turned out we’d get even better conditions the next day! Perfect sunny skies that morning, and we went for a long walk down to the Three Sisters, and around the base of the valley. We even took the Scenic Railway back up, since we climbed all the way down by the Giant Staircase. We did a bit of souvenir shopping, and headed back to the hostel. Our visit to the Blue Mountains was a bit short lived, but we were so happy to have squeezed it into the end of our trip!

Kevin

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Photos

Sydney
A quick little walk around.

Katoomba
Katoomba had a nice small town feel.

Hostel
Definitely one of the bigger and nicer YHAs.

Hostel - 2
The hostel's backyard.

Fog
This didn't give us much hope for seeing some great scenery.

Comparison
Really foggy on Hillary's original walk.

Lookout
Supposedly when Hillary had come earlier, it was even worse than this.

The Three Sisters
Staring and hoping to see the Three Sisters.

Lookout - 2
It sort of looks like the drawing.

Lookout - 3
It was pretty cool though to see the clouds rolling off the cliff.

The Three Sisters - 2
Finally, the big reveal!

Comparison - 2
Clearing up.

View
Feeling a whole lot better.

Hostel - 3
The hostel really was quite nice.

Koala
That's one big koala.

Lookout - 4
Wednesday morning was a much clearer.

The Three Sisters - 3
Talk about a great view.

Comparison - 3
Crystal clear.

Blue Mountains
Such a stark difference to the day before.

Map
Time for a bit of walking.

Giant Stairway
It's a good thing Hillary and I are such advanced walkers.