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Published: January 18th 2006
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As I write, the clouds outside the window of our room in the Katoomba YHA are moving rapidly in varying directions right across the sky, with bolts of grey and beige, interspersed with shots of electric white and at times near black. Occasionally I can see slivers of pale blue poking through - but there’s not a chance that the skies will clear tonight. It’s already 7pm, and we have about one hour of daylight left to enjoy. Looking out the window, our view is splendid. At the end of our road, there’s rainforest for as far as the eye can see, and cockatoos and parrots are dive bombing up and down, screeching for all their lungs are worth - the racket is ear splitting, yet strangely comfortable. It reminds me of Tarzan films I watched as a kid, however at the time I always thought the ‘aye ah ah ah ah ah’ noises were monkeys.
Katoomba is about 1.5 hours drive West of Sydney, slap bang in the middle of the Blue Mountain region. This area is very popular with trekkers, abseilers, rock climbers, canyon-ers and regular lazy bods like us. The region itself is rich with dense forest,
Shaz blood
Didnt stop bleeding entirely for about 3 hours. Wasn't sore though - just creepy. gushing waterfalls, teeny villages popping up every so often, with cafes serving up wonderful cakes and well earned coffees for the weary traveler. We arrived yesterday about 5:30pm right in the middle of a rain storm - and the downpour hasn’t really let up yet, more than 24 hours later. We came here to do some walking in the forest, and sightseeing, therefore today we decided to brave the weather, pull on our waterproofs, and get going anyway, despite the poor conditions. First of all we checked with the helpful staff at our hostel as to the safety element involved in walking in the wet weather here. We were assured of safe passage if we were sensible and committed ourselves to sticking to the marked routes.
Thus assured, we headed out with a planned route in mind, past the various look out points, interesting rock structures, waterfalls and jungle. Within 200m of leaving the hostel, we were soaked through, such was the force of the showers. So much for our trusty waterproofs, they were no match for these conditions. Undeterred, we marched on willfully, striding with confidence down uneven steps and onto the Prince Henry Cliff Walk. It’s not
Alan blood
Alan's leech was bigger, but not as much blood came out. Again - it bled for an age. really a cliff, more like covered rainforest, with cascading mini waterfalls appearing all along the tracks in front of us. Most of these we needed to wade through because the rain had swollen their flow so much that the water was frothing round our ankles. Before we knew it, our ‘watertight’ boots were letting in the moisture, and after about 20 mins of squelching away, we knew our socks were soaked through - so we stopped to take them off and wring them out. Now - this is where I nearly fainted, as when I lifted up my trousers to take my boots off, I had two big fat slimy black horrible leeches on me - one on my leg having its dinner, and the other one inching itself up to the top of my sock. Alan almost had a heart attack as I started screaming (well, a girls’ allowed to be creeped out and throw a panic attack occasionally isn’t she!) and dancing about bawling ‘Get it off!! Aaargh!! Get it off!!’ At first he didn’t know what I was on about, however, once I’d pointed out the horrible things (using my whole arm) and screamed a bit more,
Mist outside our room when the rain starts
Beyond the fog is the beautiful rainforest. my knight in wet khaki armour came to my rescue by speedily plucking them off me with a hanky and throwing them back into the trees. Kidding you not - I nearly died of fright when I saw them on me. We quickly checked ourselves, and comfortable that we didn’t have any more scary things secreting themselves away on our person we kept on trucking, more aware this time of the dangers of the blood sucking vampire insects of death!. It took about half an hour for my heart rate to return to normal, and I had to keep checking myself every so often for new arrivals.
The walk we did was dramatic and eerie as we were right in the thick of heavy canopy covered jungle. The rain didn’t really let up at all during the trek, and this kind of ruined the overall experience. Every time we reached a look out, we couldn’t see anything but mist over the very tops of the trees, however we knew that there were exciting sights to see if only it were a clearer day. Also, because we had to be so careful where we were placing our feet, we missed
out on checking the flora around us. We think therefore it might have been better to do this particular hike on a drier day. This is the route we took: Along Prince Henry Cliff top walk, past Honeymoon, Tallawarra & Lady Carrington lookouts. Down the Giant Stairway and through the Three Sisters Rock formation (there are 900 steep uneven steps to descend). Past Echo Point, and round the Federal Pass Track, ending up with a walk round Katoomba Falls and onto the Railway Inclinator; a funicular which takes you up the steep mountainside to the outskirts of Katoomba again. This took us about 3.5 hours but it’s advertised at 4-5 hours with a ‘hard’ grading.
Once we got back to the hostel we were exhausted, wet through and in desperate need of a shower and some food. As Alan got ready to get into the shower I noticed a big black ‘slug like’ thing on his back. Nightmare - another massive leech was on him. I had to be a brave girl and remove it for him, which I did with all the calm collectiveness of a mental outpatient who’s ran out of their drugs. Alan handled the situation
perfectly, picking up the leech on the loo roll I’d used to help prise the thing from him which I’d dropped on the floor when it started wriggling about. He flushed it down the toilet and came to assure me of its departure. I was on the top bunk by this point with my back to the ceiling. Drama queen or what?! I’ve decided Alan is incredibly brave, and I might write to Esther Rantzen when we get home to see if I can wangle him some sort of gold heart award or something.
Now its time for us to head off and find some dinner. The rain has just let up which is just as well, as our jackets are still not dry from earlier on and we’re going to have to brave the elements again with only a T-shirt for protection! They sell trendy see thru plastic ponchos in reception - so we might have to laugh in the face of fashion this evening and make a purchase, all in the name of essential dryness.
Anyway - enough of the blethering - we’ll let you know if we encounter any more vampire-esque insects over the next
Shaz soaked through
Our jackets didnt dry for nearly 24 hours. few days of trekking around Katoomba.
Love, Shaz & Alan. xxxx
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Gaz
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