Advertisement
Published: November 14th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Time to write an update. This blog is not intended to tell all the stories of my 2+ months in Sydney. I will fill in some of the stories not told here before I leave from Sydney. But for now, I just want to tell the stories of last week. Last week I embarked on a 5 day “excursion” to test my health and see how ready to travel I really was.
Melbourne Cup The first test was on Tuesday, and it was The Melbourne Cup. The Cup is held on the first Tuesday in November every year. It is a horse race. But this isn’t any normal horse race. In the state of Victoria, where Melbourne is located, the day is a state holiday… everybody off work. Here in Sydney, it is almost a holiday. Most people only work a half day and then go into work late on Wednesday. Can you say Super Bowl hangover.
Daz and I (yes, that is just his nickname) headed down to Royal Randwick Racetrack to meet up with some of his other mates. I actually had to borrow some clothes to wear. You must be dressed appropriately to go to the races.
The place was packed. They had races going on here in Sydney along with telecast from Melbourne. It was one huge party scene. To me this seemed like a much bigger party than even the KY Derby, just my opinion.
The good news of the day, is I actually managed to pick the winner. I feel like such a chick with this part of the story. “How did you know football team X would win?” “Oh, I liked their uniforms.” Anyway, knowing nothing about horses I picked a favorite, American bred horse and a long shot. For my third horse I figured I would just wing some middle of the pack. Standing talking to the bookie I was inspired by the name “Delta Blues.” It made me start thinking of the Marc Cohen song.
Out of the gate, Delta Blues took the early lead. To which Daz and I both said it was too soon. The Cup is long, 3200meters. But Delta Blues managed to reclaim the lead just at the end. He paid off at 15:1, and Daz and I had some money to party with the rest of the night. Amazingly one of the girls in our group
hit the trifecta perfectly, which paid 200:1. Not a bad day for our group. And yes for some reason I also felt like Richard Dreyfuss in that great movie “Let it Ride.” Which I might have done if I had known there were more races.
Blue Mountains On Wednesday, I groggily caught the train to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains. I spent Wednesday and Thursday up here hiking around. Most people will tell you that the Blue Mountains are big like you think of mountains. But they are impressive. Huge sandstone cliffs that have been carved away to create massive valleys and steep cliff walls. It is easy to understand why it took so long for the explorers to find a way through these mountains.
But I wasn’t here just to enjoy the scenery. I came to hike and test out the back. The first day, I just carried a day pack, about 2kg, and hiked for 5 or so hours. The hike was nice, but hard. It started along the cliff top. I made it to the Three Sisters, the main tourist attraction in the area. From here it got interesting, as I decided to head
to the valley floor, using the Giant Staircase, 890 steps. I reminded me of hiking into Tallulah, only steeper and deeper. Once down to the bottom the hike was pretty easy and flat again. Until it came time to hike out, and then up the Fuber stairs. I think there were only 700 some stairs on this part of the trail. I finished by hiking around the rim some more. Unfortunately, it was cloudy so no sunset.
Thursday was intended to be the big day. I was going to carry about 10kgs, and go farther. The plan was to head to the Ruined Castle, once again down into the valley. The Ruined Castle looks really cool from afar. You can see a group of monolithic rocks on the knoll of this hill. From afar, they look like a castle. Once I was up among them, though, they were just big rocks. But it was a good hike, quite enjoyable really. Today, I elected to ride the incline railway out of the valley. It is the steepest incline railway in the world they say. Even though I took the lift because I was lazy and decided I had pushed myself
enough, it was actually a pretty cool ride.
Overall after 2 days of hiking I wasn’t really any worse for the wear. Sore yes. My calves and knees hurt pretty bad on Friday. But the back and legs felt like they had just been hiked for 10 hours in 2 days, nothing worse. Of course to say, that I've seen the Blue Mountains now, would be like going to Gatlinburg for 2 days and saying that you have seen the Smokey Mountains. There is still a lot out there to explore.
Olympic Whitewater Friday’s adventure saw me at Penrith Whitewater Center, site of the 2000 Olympic Games whitewater events. The course is entirely man made. There is a river nearby but it has nothing to do with the course.
How best to describe, well you put in at the take out. The first trick is to ride the conveyor belt to the starting pool. And then you go. The course is 330 meters long, about as long as the Ocoee course. I would say it is pretty much as pushy as the main meat of the Ocoee course also. The biggest difference is there are no
pools, and the eddies are pretty swirly. I also didn’t see any holes as heinous as Humongous, though one hole did suck me back for a ride before spitting me out. I was paddling a GT. I asked for an EZ and was told that they didn’t have any playboats. Yes, I laughed at that as well.
Once you finish your run, you just get on the conveyor and do it again. The water is all pumped from the bottom lake to the top course. The pumps can fill a 50 meter Olympic pool in 55.7 seconds. That is lots of water. I forget what the gradient and flow is, they told me but I don’t remember. I just remember, Ocoee Olympic course, not much different.
What I found interesting, was the boat locker. I guess I actually found this sad or too bad. Most of the locals just keep their boats at the whitewater center, locked up. There aren’t any rivers for many, many kilometers to warrant keeping your boat at home. Their only whitewater is a man made 330 meter course.
It surprised me that the kayaking actually hurt more than the hiking. But not
much. I also realized that while I could still paddle, my skills were seriously eroded, having not used them much for a year. I will need to go back and get some more practice.
The Sea The last test was sea kayaking. Clinton, Daz, and I went over to the Spit Bridge near manly and rented sea kayaks for a few hours. Not much to report here. It was a fun 2 hours of kayaking. I managed to beat Clint in the final race, because I lulled him to sleep and he quit thinking he had one. Only to see me give a final push and claim the race. Not sure I could really beat him if he tried the whole way, but that doesn’t matter.
The rest of the story And on the 6th day. Well actually as soon as the sea kayaking was over it was time to rest. We spent Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday at the beach.
So it looks like I’m ready to go.
Next stop South Africa… Jo-burg.
I think I’m leaving here the week of Nov 27th. I’ll go and get a ticket this week, maybe. I’m ready
to go, just sticking around for a little more recovery time.
I’ll fill in some more short stories before I leave. I’m sure we will create some in the next 2 weeks.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.288s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 72; dbt: 0.1166s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Unc Paul
non-member comment
Good News
Mike, glad to hear you are feeling so much better. Keep up posted as you near your jump-off time. All is well with family in Atlanta. Paul