Blankets of Cloud

---

I went to pick the car up first thing in the morning; I finally got it at 11am. It’s a huge great Ford Falcon Station Wagon. It was a good job the car was big as I was heading to the Blue Mountains with Carol Anne who I met back up with the day before, an English guy called Rich and an American called Michelle.
We made good time to the Blue Mountains but as we left Sydney the weather started to get worse.
The town on Katoomba is 1000 meters up in the mountains and shrouded in fog. Before we got there though we went to Wentworth Falls. Despite the drizzle and blanket of fog we took the walking track down the cliff. This track literally was carved into the side of the cliff and descended very sharply. The rain actually made it more interesting as there were dozens of little waterfalls along the way. I’m sure the view would have been fantastic if we could have seen any of it.

By the time we got to Katoomba it was getting dark so we got into our hostel and headed out for something to eat. That night nobody got any sleep as one person in our dorm snored like you would not believe. He was so bad that the following night it was kicked out to sleep in a room on his own.

The next day we woke to cloud and by the time we got to the start of the walking track it was clear we were going to see nothing. The track took us down the cliff into the valley. The trees were full of hundreds of cockatoos and other tropical birds singing to each other. We saw lots of funnel webs but no funnel web spiders!! They must had all been hiding from the bad weather. Good job really as one bite from them and your dead!

The cloud and fog remained all day. By late afternoon we had climbed out of the valley and were sitting at Echo Point viewpoint. The place were all the photos are taken of the Three Sisters rock formation. This was also the point that all the tour busses come to. As we got there we could see the railings in front of us and then nothing but white. Then as if by magic it cleared giving us a perfect view of the Three Sisters.

That afternoon Rich went back to Sydney but myself and Carol Anne stayed for another night. Our last day in the Blue Mountains was lovely weather. There was a walk in the guide book that said you had to be an experienced walked. I’m sure after all I’ve done in New Zealand I would qualify for that. It did also say you needed a compass and survival equipment. Oh well I filled the first criteria. I did manage to find some other people to go with. We drove out to the start of the track and then headed off down another valley in search of the Ruined Castle. After a couple of hours we reached it. From Echo Point this rock formation looks like a group of tiny boulders. When you get to it they are huge and towering way above you. We managed to climb them to the top and all four of us sat in this little flat rock about 2 feet square and 60 feet above the ground which in turn was about 1000 feet about the base of the valley. Here we got fantastic 360 degree views of the valley. You did have to be carefully standing up taking photos as one wrong foot and it would have been a long fall.

By 2pm we were heading back to Sydney. We stopped off briefly at Wentworth falls just to see the view we had missed the first time round. By the time we reached Sydney it was rush hour and we had to head to one side of the city to drop Carol Anne of at the train station and then go to the opposite side of the city to drop the car off. The boot catch broke on our first day so we couldn’t get into the boot!! This is why we had to drop the car back at the rental garage. This turned out to be a good thing as they kept it overnight so it saved me spending a fortune on city centre parking.
That night I met back up with some people from the hostel and we all went out for a drink (well it is my birthday tomorrow).

Well next stop Canberra….

---