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Published: November 23rd 2005
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- FOOD: Lunch overlooking the blue haze of the eucalyptus trees; pizza at Tom's and good wine.
- PEOPLE: Some unfriendly train staff; tourists in a hurry; a security guard who mistook me for a suicide jumper!; drag queen hosting Bingo; Tom and Amy making me feel at home.
- AREA: Double decker train to the Blue Mountains; fantastic view from Echo Point of the blueness and Three Sisters; Giant Stairway (not so giant); peaceful walk until the touristy coalmine; a scratchy lyrebird; rainforest walk through cool shaped trees; not worth it Skytrain; loud parrots; Erkensville for the 'Priscilla' Imperial Hotel.
- WEATHER: Well, it didn't rain...
Tue 30th Aug: I didn't get quite as early as I'd wanted to - it's not easy when seeing so much of a place by night! After speaking to quite a few unfriendly train staff, I worked out myself how to get to the Blue Mountains. It took 2 hours on the double decker train (such a novelty) to Katoomba town and then a bit of a walk from the station to the mountains, past cool little art shops.
At Echo Point, the beauty of the mountains and
the Three Sisters hits you. For miles, there stretches millions of eucalyptus trees covering the mountains. The oil from them catches in the sun giving off a haze of blue. The mist type effect is very calming.
The Three Sisters get their name from when the Katoomba leader turned his 3 beautiful daughters into stone as he feared their death from the war taking place. He was killed before he had a chance to turn them back.
I decided to take the walk down the Giant Stairway - for experienced walkers only. Experienced walkers?!! I'm quite sure practically anyone could walk them - when the going gets tough, the handrails and iron steps instead of stone ones get going! Some of the Inca sights in S America should have the same warnings!
I slowly walked through the trees and the blueness, fully appreciating the beauty around me (and the lack of people around me). So peaceful... that is until I got to the coalmine section which was swarming with tourists pressing various buttons, behind the cordened off mines of course, to see films about what life was like in the mines - such a different experience to Potosi in
Bolivia! The tourists were in such a rush to get back to their day tour group that they missed seeing a lyrebird scratching away at the rubble to find its food. Such a small bird causes so much rubble to fall that it was like a mini landslide!
I then went on a walk through the rainforest section - some brilliant tree and root shapes, twisting vines and trees that strip their bark. I then caught the skyway lift back up. This was crap and an expensive 2 minutes - I should've walked.
I took the cliff walk all the way back to Echo Point to see it all from above - all very gorgeous even though it was grey and windy (at least there was no rain). There were lots of noisy birds and different types of parrots squawking away - including those white ones with a yellow mohican (did Play School used to have one?!) There were so many places to stop at to take in the range of colours on these layered mountains - at one point I was leant on the barrier, head on arms, gazing out at the beauty. My trance state was interrupted
by a security guard asking if I was ok. I'd been ignoring him for a while as I didn't realise he was talking to me (actually I didn't even hear him as I was so engrossed in the view). He said local people had given him a description of a girl which I fitted who had climbed over the barrier further up and looked like she was going to jump! It took a while to convince him it wasn't me - I suppose I might've looked depressed as I was gazing out, ignoring him but I couldn't have been in a happier state!
As I walked further up with him we saw the girl who it must've been - also sat there just staring out but really not looking very happy with it. She was telling them to leave her alone - I hung around for a while to see if Ozzie man tact was helping or hindering and decided she wasn't going to jump so walked on.
I was really tired after my day of walking but instead of going back, took the train to Erkensville to go to the Imperial Hotel - famous from 'Priscilla, Queen of
the Desert' (one of my favourite films). The Priscilla bar itself where I assume they have big drag queen shows wasn't open but the other bars were so I stayed for a drink (not a Stollie and Tonic though), wishing Steve was here to appreciate this place with me.
Tom invited me to his place so I jumped on another train, grabbed a pizza and went to his very nice flat to meet his girlfriend Amy and have some wine. Some of the Ukranians had left so Tom insisted I stay over - it was good chatting to them both so I agreed. Shame the builders next door started work at 6.30am!!
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