It’s a small, small world in the Blue Mountains

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On Thursday I took a 2 hour train ride from Sydney to the Blue Mountains. I had heard a little about them, and decided to go, not really knowing what to expect, except that it was a national park. On the way there I took the time to read the Australia Lonely Planet guide (mostly its history and then read the few pages about the Blue Mountains). The sights on the way there are totally different from what you can see in Sydney, it’s practically a rainforest. I got off in Katoomba (small touristic town) and walked down the main road (Katoomba Road), where I arrived at “Echo Point, the lookout of “The Three Sisters”, a renowned rock formation there. Of course, when I arrived, the whole valley that forms beneath the cliff was covered by fog and you couldn’t see The Three Sisters, so I started walking towards the Katoomba falls. It took me about an hour to get there and there was still a lot of fog. After consulting a map, I decided to walk down the “Furber Steps” that take you to the bottom of the Katoomba Falls (very nice views from there) and then continued going down. Eventually I got to a place in which there used to be mines and there’s a very nice walkway there; I especially liked the twining tangled trees. While I was walking there, I happened to run into a friend of mine I hadn’t seen in a few years – Ella Miranda. She’s been living in Sydney with her husband for a while now and we had spoken on the phone the previous day. I knew she was going to the Blue Mountains as part of an activity with her university, but the odds of finding her there were minimal (the park is pretty big). It was a good surprise seeing her again and we made plans to get a beer one of the following days to catch up.

After I was done walking around the park, I went back to the town, grabbed a sandwich for lunch and ate it at the train station while waiting for the train to take me back to Sydney. On the train, I took advantage of the 2 hour ride to write the first 3 posts for this blog, then got home, took a shower and left to the Courthouse Hotel in Newtown to a couchsurfing meeting that was held there. First time I’ve been to one and I had an excellent time and met some really cool people. I got a tip about a rented room in Bondi Junction which if I can get it, would be a good place to live in for the next 2 months or so.

Friday was a “slower day”; I got up at around 10, did my laundry and then met with César Silva, a Chilean friend of a friend, who’s been living here for a while. We had a few beers and had a great conversation at the bar of the CBS Hotel (York & King St). He offered to help me find a job in a construction site through another Chilean friend of his. Apparently it’s good money, definitely something new, so the experience would be interesting, and it would allow me to pay for my scuba diving instructor course and the sailing lessons, plus enough to live for some time and maybe even save a bit for a campervan. We’ll see how that goes next week. After he left, I met with another Chilean friend I hadn’t seen in a few years who’s been living here for about a year, doing an MBA. There were more beers and more good conversation.

Later, I headed back to the place I was staying in, packed my bags and left at around 8pm to my next host’s home, located in Marrickville. A friendly guy named Chris who lives with 2 other people in a reconditioned former hospital/retirement home – a huge place in which you can still see vestiges of what it used to be, especially in the huge bathroom and old buttons on the walls to call for assistance. Turns out they’re organizing a Valentine’s party for tomorrow (saturday), only for singles; supposedly about 50 – 70 people are to show up (it was the perfect timing to couchsurf I guess). At night I ended up cutting paper hearts for the cards they’re going to pass out. I also volunteered to help out with the decoration.

To finish this post, I was invited for lunch tomorrow to a former Navy officer’s house (I met him in the Naval Academy briefly), who’s been living here for a number of years now. After that, I’m coming back to help with the set up for the party. More on that, in the following post.

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