April 2 – Blue Mountains Tour - UPDATED


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Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Blue Mountains
April 3rd 2014
Published: April 3rd 2014
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Hello. This is our last full day in Sydney and we scheduled a full-day tour of an area called the Blue Mountains. It turned out to be a very interesting, but very tiring, so we did not get the description written until the next day (Thursday). Here is what we did on Wednesday.



We started pretty early again with a complimentary pickup at 7:00. David went across to a nearby Starbucks for a couple of pastries at 6:30, which we were able to eat in the hotel whilst we waited for the bus. We were the first pickup and we rode around town for about an hour before arriving at the central location. We got on our correct bus (with driver/guide named Peter) and we were set for the day at 8:00.



We had about a 2 hour ride out of Sydney and up to the Blue Mountains. This is actually a region where there is a lot on microscopic eucalyptus oil in the air, and the amount of moisture & sunlight gives various depths of blue haze to the whole area. There are 25 small villages in the region with a total population of around 100,000.



During the drive, Peter provided us with a running commentary about lots of interesting facts about the area and Australia in general. For instance, we drove out of town by crossing the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It took 9 years to construct and originally was designed with 6 lanes (2 for cars and 4 for horse-drawn vehicles). Now there are 6 car lanes and they have attached two train lines as well. There are also pedestrians of sort – they pay around $200 for a guide to be able to climb over the top of the bridge (involves about 1600 steps up one side and down the other). It was foggy when we drove across, but that is not unusual in the mornings. For some reason the Sydney area gets a lot of annual rainfall, but much of it comes at night, leaving moisture in the air for the first few hours. If it rains during the day it is usually quite heavy but over with a short period of time. We cannot confirm that because we had bright sunny sky all day. According to the bus, the temperature in the mountains was about 23 degrees (74 Fahrenheit) although Janet thought it was kind of hot all day.



The bus made its first stop at Leura, a small village in the Blue Mountains. We had 35 minutes for restrooms, morning tea in a local shop, and to look into the shops if we wanted. We stopped at a place and Janet had Tea and Scones (2 large biscuits which she shared with David, who had gotten a strawberry tart). On the way back to the bus, she spotted a Teapot Museum, but by then we were out of time and it had to be skipped. L



The next stop was a short distance away at 11:00 at a place called Scenic World. The tour package we had bought did not include access to the “rides”, but we were able to buy tickets and join the fun. The alternative would have been a long scenic walk around a deep gorge to where the bus would pick us up at 1:15. Since we did not want to spend the next two hours walking around the mountain gorge (admiring the vista views), we bought tickets for the rides.



First up was a gondola ride across the gorge to where the main facility is located. During the ride across, the tiles in the center of the gondola change from opaque to clear and you can look down through the floor all the way to the bottom. Actually the floor had been walked on so much that it wasn’t all that clear, but Janet definitely did not want to be standing on those tiles when they seemed to disappear from under your feet. The views out the side of the gondola were breathtaking enough.



When we got to the other side, our group was ushered into a cog train to ride down the mountainside. The grade is 52 degrees down-angle. The seats have 3 settings (“Normal”,” Laid Back” – which changes the feeling to 42 degrees – and “Cliffhanger” – which changes to 62 degrees). Anyway, you had to select the setting before the train left and all 4 people on the bench had to be the same. We didn’t really know what we were doing, so we defaulted to Normal. The ride is only about a minute or two, but it is very steep and as they train left the station they played the theme from Indiana Jones. Frankly it wasn’t so scary but we were in the front bench of the carriage and we slid forward on the seat and banged our knees into the front of the car. This was definitely not good for Janet’s knee, but we were already at the bottom before we could do anything about it. Anyway, we certainly did not take the train back up.



At the bottom, there were 3 scenic walks through the woods, each arriving at a location where we could take a cable car back to the main station. We chose the 10 minute path instead of the 25 min or 45 min paths. It was actually fairly easy walking and they had a lot of signs along the way explaining things about the trees and shrubs. Originally this part of the mountainside had been a mine, and the cog train had been used to bring the coal to the upper level. When the coal ran out they decided to use it for tourist instead. Anyway, the walk was quite enjoyable after a pushy group of Asians (maybe Japanese, Chinese, or something else) diverted off onto one of the longer paths.



We got to the cable car station and only had a short wait until the car arrived. We had a comfortable ride and scenic views from the car as we ascended back to the tourist center. That is where some of the people had pre-purchased a lunch package. That also was not in our package, but we got a pizza (chicken, avocado, and brie) to split, which was plenty for us. If we had bought the meal package we probably would have had 2 pizzas and would never have been able to eat it all. We still had a few minutes to look around the Gift Shop before boarding the bus again.



During lunch, we were able to get our driver to call Melbourne to reconfirm us on the next tour we are going to take in a couple of days. We do not have the cell phone turned on (to avoid international roaming charges) and probably would not know how to call them anyway. However our paperwork gave him all the info he needed to call and reconfirm us for Friday morning pickup. We were very happy to have his help.



Back on the bus, we drove about half an hour to a place called Echo Point. This gave us the best view of 3 sandstone pillars called the Three Sisters. There appear to be several legends about how 3 sisters got turned to stone and now they watch over the vista of the Blue Mountains forever. Anyway, there was a very good viewing location, and we had excellent weather to be able to see them.



On the way, Peter talked about how the original “immigrants” had been criminals sent to penal establishments. After the US revolution, the British could not send criminals to “the colonies” so they started sending them to Australia. They weren’t all for major crimes and some were for as small as stealing a loaf of bread. Anyway, after serving their penalty they were either entitled to a ride back to England or to be freed in Australia. Because of the superior climate and boundless opportunities, many stayed in Australia. When they wrote home that they weren’t returning, more and more real immigrants started coming to Australia. If someone wanted to immigrate but could not afford the fee for sea passage, they just had to commit a crime and be convicted. Eventually England ceased this practice as it had turn into a “free travel” program to a new life. At least that how Peter told the story. By the way, he also said that 300 cruise ships come to Sydney harbor each season.



Also at Echo Point, we had admission tickets to attend an original aboriginal ceremony and a meeting with a tribal elder. Well the “elder” was half our age, but he said he was an actual member of the tribe. He explained a little of their history and showed some of their original hunting weapons (a couple of different boomerangs and a long spear). The theater wasn’t nearly large enough for him to throw any of them, but we got the general idea. Then another brought out one of their decorative horns (about 5 feet long) which is created by wood-ants eating out the inside of a branch and then the sound comes from blowing through the horn. He demonstrated how to make a variety of sounds which imitated kangaroos, emus, and dingo dogs. Finally they concluded by getting 3 ladies to “volunteer” to come up on stage to perform the Emu Dance, and then 4 men came up to perform the Kangaroo Dance. Janet would not volunteer but David learned and performed the Kangaroo Dance. Unfortunately it would be disrespectful to ever perform this sacred dance outside of tribal land, so David can NEVER repeat the performance again.



Back on the bus again about 2:15 we had a hour’s ride to a Featherdale Wildlife Park. Here we got to walk around and see live Kangaroos, Wallabies, Emus, a huge Crocodile, lots of varieties of birds, Dingoes, Wombats, a Tasmanian Devil, and some koala bears. We had about an hour here and it was really fascinating. We were able to pet several of them (not the croc) and even buy cups of feed to get some of the small kangaroos to eat out of your hand. They did not have the taller variety of kangaroos (grow up to 6 feet tall), but these smaller ones were really cute. We had been here about 4 weeks and had not seen any of these well-known animals, so we were beginning to worry about missing them entirely. The local Australians are not nearly as impressed with roos – they are a traffic hazard (like we have with deer) to the Aussies, and are a food to eat rather than a cute animal to cuddle. We certainly enjoyed these visit, but we had to get back on the bus at 4:30 to head back into town. There are estimated to be about 45M kangaroos and wallabies across Australia. FYI: many of these nocturnal animals (like koalas) sleep up to 18 hours a day when they are in the wild – not stimulated by tourists in the park.



We got more facts from Peter. There are about 23M Australians (half as many as roos) and 4.5M live in the greater Sydney area. The average annual income is about $72K per year and the average tax paid to the government is about $11K. Until the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, Australia actually had a surplus rather than a debt and they were able to provide plentiful services to all their residents. In 2008 they started spending their surplus to stimulate their economy. Prior to 2008 the average unemployment rate was about 3.5%!b(MISSING)ut now it has grown to almost 6%! (MISSING)Australia has a fairly young population and the average age is only 37 (they are not facing anything like the baby-boomer dilemma that is occurring elsewhere in the world). Housing is booming with the recent figures showing new home sales to be up about 2%!p(MISSING)er month for many of the prior months. The average cost of a single family house is about $700K.



The Australian school year has four 10-week sessions with a 2-week recess between the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. After the 4th session there is a 6-week summer vacation, roughly from mid-December to late January. This gives them Christmas and summer at the same time.



The bus drove us through what is left of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Park. Some of the building and stadiums are still in place and used for various sporting activities, but some of the others have been repurposed. They are setting up for a big event in a couple of weeks, so the bus could only drive around the outside of the complex, but we were able to see the Olympic Stadium, Ian Thorpe Swimming stadium, and a few others. It was pointed out that the Olympic Rings have to be taken down at some point after the Olympics are over, but they still have the interlocking ring-shaped mounds where they had been previously.



The next stop was along Parramatta River where a large number of our group had purchases tickets to ride down the river to Sydney on a River Boat. We elected to stay on the bus and had more commentary as Peter took us back to our hotel front door. Peter explained that Kangaroos can have two babies in their pouch of differing age. Apparently she makes different kind of milk for the older and younger babies. When a kangaroo is young she has female babies and when she gets older she had males. She also has the ability to suspend a pregnancy for up to 2 years if conditions are not good for her to be able to feed herself and young ones. It was all very interesting today.



We got back to the hotel about 6:30. We tried to use the free internet but had to wait until after 8:15 (the availability must be more than 24 hours from when you used your time the previous day). So we went to the room for a while. David went out to a local shop and got us a light dinner which we sat in the room. We were actually a bit too tired to try to write out the day’s activities for the blog, so we deferred that to the next day.



We leave town early Thursday morning so we had to pack everything up and then try to get some sleep. Tomorrow we move to the next stage of our adventure, but wanted to have everything prepared rather than trying to gather stuff together in the morning. So that is all for today.



We did hear that Janet’s brother Mike had to have emergency gall bladder surgery on Apr-1. We hope to hear he has done well.

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