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Published: June 20th 2006
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Me with the "canyon" in the background.
NOt quite as grand as the grand canyon, but still rather grand i reckon. After spending over a week in the city we thought we'd get amongst some nature. So off we went for a trip into the the great outdoors for some fresh air (Being in a 6 bed dorm can get a bit sifling). Our desination: the nearby Blue Mountains, every Sydneyers favourite daytrip.
We went on a minibus which not only took us on the 2 hour journey to the Blue Mountains, but also included a quick visit to the Sydney Olympic Park and to Featherdale Animal Sanctuary. At the Olympic Park we got a view of the Telstra Sadium through the daytime, of course we'd already seen it at night to see England get mauled in the Rugby. You could also see the thing that held the Olympic flame during the games(The Olympic Flame Holder is the technical term i think). Undernath the flame holder thingy were engraved the names of every single medal winner during the 2000 games on either gold, silver or bronze panels- i managed to find Redgrave and Pinsent aswell as Jonathan Edwards- En-ger-land!
Next stop, Featherdale Animal Sanctuary. Here I finally managed to see some typical Aussie animals like the Koala, Kangaroo, Possum etc.
A lot of the animals were free to roam around the park as they liked whereas others, like the crocodile, for some reason i can't think of now, had to stay in their pens. There was a bit of a Crash Team Racing theme to the park with a lot of the characters in the game being here (Bandicoots, Dingos): as we spent many a happy hour on that game during uni it was quite good/dissapoining to see the real animals on which the characters were built. The park was geared a bit towards younger children: you got a pamphlet with the names of the different sections of the park on, you could get a stamp for each section when you passed through it: Will went about completing the set, but unfortunately fell a few stamps short! We passed some penguins who were screaming their heads off like Geordie Dave; we also passed through the reptile house where Dan (aka Dudley off Harry Potter) was banging on the windows telling the snakes to do something whilst Will practiced his parseltounge.
After patting some animals, Dans favourie was the Cockatoo!! (Can't believe you stole my joke on your site Dan!)
Dan with a cokatoo
He likes a cok-a-too. PS I cannot believe you plagiarised my idea for this joke on your site Dan.
plagiarise= to take without referencing from someone else's writing or speech; of intellectual property (dictionary.com) OK the joke may no be "intellectual" if you will, but you've got a lot to learn in travelblog etiquette T-bone! I prefered the Kangaroos, we headed for the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains are "basically" a range of mountains that engulf a huge canyon, there is green forest at the bottom of the canyon so it looks a bit different to the Grandest of all Canyons, the Grand Canyon. They get their name because it looks like there is a Blue Haze between the mountains in the distance. We had a mild trek alongside the Canyon checking out various viewpoints and a few waterfalls before heading to a nearby village for lunch. The village was really nice, it looked quintessentially Old English I thought, a bit like Beamish (It had a traditional candy shop. and much to Dans excitement- Cakes galore and so much more!)
After Lunch we headed to the Three Sisters, Three Huge Rocks that overlap onto the canyon. Storytime: the story of the Three Sisters comes from the Aboriginies- Folklore has it that three men fancied these three beautiful sisters from another tribe, only problem was that the tribes weren't allowed to inter-marry. The three men thought "sod that no inter-marrying rule for a game of soldiers i'm gonna get myself one of those sisters if
it's the last thing i do" and took the Frankie Goes to hollywood stance, the Two Tribes went to war. As the war waged the local Witch Doctor couldn't stand the thought of these sisters being forced into marrying these men so he instead turned them into three huge rocks in the Blue Mountains?!?! Not sure if he asked the sisters first if they'd rather marry or be turned into a huge rock for evermore, but apparently thats what happened!
After the Three Sisters we venured down through the forest, getting another waterfall under our belt as well as seeing an old mine shaft. We got a ride back up the forest in a cable car, we could've went up the steepest train track in the world instead but we fancied the cable car. I was soon ot regret my cable car decision when i heard the people on the steep train getting Indiana Jones Music pumped into their carriage for atmospheric effect: the lucky buggers!
Overall the Blue Mountains left me feeling anything but Blue and blew away a few cobwebs after being in the city for a while. Till next time,
Mike
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