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Published: April 16th 2008
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Abseiling
Here I am at the top of the 20m cliff descended to the ground! Day 2
We were up early and had a breakfast of cereal and toast. This morning we were going Abseiling (a.k.a. repelling). For me this was why I was excited most about the trip. We were going to do a very high cliff. We headed to the place where we met our guides but then we had to go to another location because the access road was closed. We ended up going to Mt. York which is the place where the first explorers crossed over the blue mountains.
The crazy thing was our head guide of the climbing company and Emily one of our Arcadia guides went to guiding school together! We went over some safety and how to put our harnesses on etc. then we hiked down to the cliffs. The first cliff was really small. About 2m high. It was a practice so that the guides could make sure we knew how to do it right. Sean was one of our guides and he kept calling me an expert because I said I had repelled once or twice before. But it turns out I was pretty good. I found it interesting
Rain coming in
Here you can see the rain coming into the valley where we were going to go on the Pink fluffy bunny cliff. that the part they said was the toughest (stepping off the edge) was not that scary for me.
After everyone did the little cliff then we went to the next size cliff. It was bout 10m high. I enjoyed it but wanted more. I was the first one down the next size cliff, it was about 20m. The scary thing about this cliff was that it had a couple of overhangs. I felt I would smash my face into the rock if I dropped my feet down. But I did it! I moved my feet and then just hung in the air. It was awesome and made me feel so accomplished. I then waited to move onto the next cliff. I took some pictures of people. Then I decided what the hell I’ll go on this one again before the really big one. When I got to the top they were closing up so I was the last one down. As I was about to go over the edge it started to thunder. I was much better my second time down. Then we all packed up our stuff and walked to another area where the big cliff was. A
Lookin back up
..the way we had come down on the Scenic Railway. It was sooo steep! guide tried to tell us it was called the pink fluffy bunny cliff. Sean told me it was really called Shock of Death. Unfortunately the storms came in before we could climb. We just made it back to the shelter at the car park before it started pouring. The guides fixed up a lunch for us which reminded me of the Outback sandwich lunches. When the rain stopped they told us we couldn’t do the last cliff because it was too wet and dangerous. So we said our goodbyes and got back on the charter bus.
We headed to the Scenic World. It was the most touristy place we were all weekend. We went down the railway and across the path on the valley floor and up the cableway. It was frustrating because we were packed into the cablecar by Japanese tourists. They definitely pushed and shoved and came into our personal space. We did however meet a nice family that was touring the country. The two parents and their daughter had spent the last 12 months coming from Melbourne. The parents found work as they went along and just got by enjoying
Scenic Railway sign
See it was really steep! life. The daughter did correspondence school and sometimes when they stayed in an area for a while they would enroll her at a local school. They were really nice and it sounded like the carefree life was pretty good.
Then we met up as a group and went across the skyway. There we saw Katoomba falls and then walked over to Echo point where there is a beautiful view of the three sisters.
Some people climbed down a ton of stairs to see the sisters up close but I ran out of time because I had gone to see the waterfall. I was a little glad though because they were huffing and puffing there way back up the stairs.
The shortened dreamtime story of the three sisters is that there was going to be a fight and the clever man hid the three sisters in stone so they wouldn’t get hurt. Unfortunately the clever man was killed in the fight and no one has been able to un-petrify the sisters to this day.
Then it was a 2.5 hour bus ride back to Sydney, because of
The Skyway
Here you can see how we got across the canyon. traffic. We were dropped off at Central and then walked back to campus. Unfortunately on our way home it started to rain, so I got pretty wet walking back. But Yay! Because Brittany wrote my name down for late dinner so I had food to eat when I got home.
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