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Published: February 3rd 2007
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Abseiling G
Crazy G abseiling in the Blue Mountains After the New Year and the cockroach incident we made a swift exit from Sydney to the Blue Mountains. We caught the train from Sydney and after a little snooz i woke up to see a differnet landscape to that of the coast. The scenery was beautiful with mountains that glowed blue from the eucaliptus oil and a little town called Katoomba with lots of little cafes and a coutryside feel. We jumped off the train and headed to our hostel (central backpackers) that we had regretfully booked into for 2 nights. I have learnt my lesson now - never book into a hostel for longer than 1 night unless you have checked it out first. .
Unfortunately it rained for pretty much the whole 3 days we were there but that didn't stop us. We took in plenty of sights and took some nice, but wet walks through the bush to waterfalls and look out points. We spent 1 morning at Scenic World where we went on an old coal mining railway track that had been adapted to carry tourists and went down a mountain practically verticle. Bit scary but i made it, luckily we didn't have to walk
Looking Good
Looking good as i nearly fall off the edge of a cliff back up the mountain but were taken in an overcrowded tourst cable way with an unenthusiastic guide who must have only known 1 of the mountains as everything in view was called Mount Solitude.
We had a quiet night that evening as we had signed up for a day of abseiling and Canyoning for the following . It was an awesome day and would highly recommend it if you have the opportunity. We headed off at 8am and after being kitted out with all the things we needed for the day we headed down to some cliffs in Katoomba and learnt to abseil, first off a small cliff and building up to the last 1 of the morning which was 20 meters. I got the hang of it pretty quickly and even though its a bit daunting looking over before you start to go down i didn't feel that scared and was looking forward to the canyoning in the afternoon. The canyoning involved getting in kitted out in wetsuits, helmets and abseiling gear and jumping through rocks and into the water of the canyons. The water was freezing but the adrenalin warmed me up and after about an hour
When it rains it pours
I really enjoyed this walk. Serial!! in the canyons we came to the top of a 30m waterfall. I went first and after making sure my harness was attached properly i wobbled to the side of the cliff and abseiled through the waterfall to the pool of water at the bottom. It was amazing and was the best part of the day. Gaz came down after me and managed to get tangled in my rope, as i moved further right down the waterfall my rope nearly took Gaz rucksack with it but luckily he didn't get pulled off the cliff and left hanging upside-down in mid air, although that could have been quite amusing!
After 3 days in The Blue Mountains we had seen everything we had wanted to so headed to Canberra for one night. We caught the Grey Hound bus from Sydney and arrived late evening in the capital of Australia, Canberra. In 1908 the Australians couldn't decide between Melbourne or Sydney as their capital city so as a compromise they decided on a city in the middle, Canberra. When we arrived in Canberra we headed out for a few drinks after having had quiet nights in Katoomba we fancied a few drinks
Triumphant
Triumphant at climbing down the waterfall behind me! down in the town. It was quite busy around and we found out that the largest car show in Australia was on that weekend and so there were crazy cars everywhere and loads of people around. I can imagine the city being very quiet on a normal weekend but the longer we spent there the lower my opinion of Canberra became. As we walked around the city that evening i felt unsafe, this may have been because of the Supernats car show but it has put me off Canberra and i wouldn't recommend spending longer than a day there. The next day we thought we would go and see some of the sights before catching our bus to Melbourne. We walked down to the city centre but only after an hour did we manage to find the right bus to go and visit the Botanical Gardens. There is little in the way of Tourist infomation in Canberra and i found the city unexciting with a bad vibe and tourist unfriendly. Oh well, you can't enjoy every place you visit and it is good to experience the bad so that you can appreciate the good in other cities.
That evening we made our way to the bus stop in Canberra and awaited our 9 hour bus trip to Melbourne. Woohhoo!!!
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