Thursday, June 01, 2006
Sydney Trip: Day 4
As a reminder, the date on day 4 is 22/05/2006, Monday.
We had to wake up very early as we wanted to catch the 725 am train to the town of Katoomba, up in the Blue Mountains. Breakfast was instant noodles which we had bought yesterday from Woolworths. Here's the 4 of them eating breakfast at 620 am in the morning. The town is a 2 hour train ride from Central Station. As we already had a TravelPass to the Green sector, we just topped up the difference, which is $9.80 for a one-way ticket.
It would have been easy to miss the station. There was something wrong with the speaker system and the driver's announcements couldn't be heard clearly. Good thing ZQ was alert and told us when it was time to get off. The first thing we noticed as we walked out of the station was the lack of ticket gates. Which means that no one would have known if we hadn't bought any tickets. The second thing we noticed was that it was a lot colder than in Sydney.
After checking into the Blue Mountains YHA, we used our See Sydney Card for 1 day on the Blue Mountains Explorer Bus and for the Scenic World rides. We took the bus straight to the rides, and decided to take the railway down and the cable car up. The railway passes through a tunnel, but the distinguishing feature is the steepness of the ride, a whopping 52 degrees. The first picture shows a tour group in front of us boarding the train, while the second shows the view from the front while the train was descending through the tunnel.
At the bottom, we took a few pictures of the famous 3 sisters. There's a legend about how they were formed. Basically a witch doctor turned his daughters into stone to protect them from an evil monster, but in escaping from the monster he lost his magic bone, and is still looking for it to this day. The picture on the left shows the 3 sisters and some of the valley, as seen from the lower station of the scenic railway. The 3 distinct blocks on the left of the picture are the 3 sisters. If you can't see them clearly, don't worry, there will be more pictures of this famous attraction in the next post.
We took a short detour along a trail to Katoomba Falls, which was nothing but a small trickle of water. Perhaps it was the season. Next we followed the boardwalk towards the cable car, making a small detour to see the coal miner's village. The village was a bit of a disappointment, it was just a small furnished shack. I suppose it was to show us how the coal miners used to live.
The cable car ride was great, giving us a wonderful view of the valley as it ascended back towards the top. The pic shows zq, chris and ch in the very large cable car.
Lunch was at the revolving restaurant there. It was expensive, but we didn't want to waste time looking for eating places. Caught the Explorer Bus to the Gordon Falls trail and started a long trek in an attempt to reach another famous attraction, Wentworth Falls. The view along the way was great, and we stopped often to take pictures. There were many lookouts along the way which gave us a great view of the valley. The trail was well signposted and quite easy to walk on. There were even staircases for the steeper sections. Here's a picture of a waterfall we encountered along the trail.
After the waterfall, we climbed back onto the main road and continued our eastward journey to the next trail that would lead on to Wentworth Falls. We only had the Explorer Bus' map of the area. It wasn't to scale, and only showed the major roads. Thanks to zq's accurate navigation, we didn't get lost, but it was much further than we expected. We finally found the start of the trail, somewhere near what looked like a country club.
Here's a pic of us posing with the sign. Now why were we posing with this sign? See the A4 sized notice stuck onto the wooden sign? 
Here's another picture that will give you a better view.
After walking all that way, we found out that the trail was closed!! So we decided to head back to Katoomba instead of trying to find a way to Wentworth by the main road. The walk back was uneventful, up to a point. It was getting dark and we had to cover all the distance we had walked earlier.
Here's a picture of the sunset, taken on the long trek back.
The sun sets early in autumn, about 5pm, so it gets dark pretty early. Next it started to rain, so the 5 of us are now sharing 2 umbrellas, walking back in the dark and in the rain. We decided to head to Leura train station instead of walking all the way back to Katoomba. Now we realised that it was a good thing the trail was closed, or we would have been stuck on a bush trail in the dark and in the rain, and that wouldn't have been any fun at all, especially as it was getting colder.
As we neared the train station, I saw a car covered in what looked like ice. We guessed that it had come from a higher region where it was colder. Thinking nothing of it, we continued. Kev and I were in front sharing an umbrella, while the other 3 were behind sharing another. Suddenly, the 2 of us heard them yelping, then they suddenly ran for shelter. We wondered what the matter was, then realised that the rain had turned to sleet. Little ice pellets were now falling from the sky, and it was painful when it hit. Luckily we were already opposite the train station. However, trains on this line have a frequency of 1 per hour, so we had a long wait for the train. Ch managed to make an ice ball for zq to volley. Anyway, here's a pic of the umbrellas after we had reached the train station safely. You can see the ice on it.
After taking the train back to Katoomba, we had dinner in a very warm chinese restaurant, ordered pizza at Domino's Pizza, and visited the supermarket, mainly to buy a 12L tank of water.
We couldn't have had pizza right after dinner, so we had actually arranged to collect the pizza at 10pm. After a very cold night out, we were all looking forward to a hot shower, and since there was still quite some time till 10pm, we all took one. When it was time to collect the pizza, none of us wanted to change back, since we were all clean and had changed into sleeping attire. There was never any doubt that we would all go to collect the pizza together, so out we went back into the cold night in the attire you see in the picture, taken from the video camera and brightened up so you can see better.
Chris is holding the pizzas, dressed in a jacket and shorts, which was what all of us were wearing. We hadn't even bothered with shoes. You can see CH at the back in SAF sandals.
It had certainly been a most eventful day.
We had to wake up very early as we wanted to catch the 725 am train to the town of Katoomba, up in the Blue Mountains. Breakfast was instant noodles which we had bought yesterday from Woolworths. Here's the 4 of them eating breakfast at 620 am in the morning. The town is a 2 hour train ride from Central Station. As we already had a TravelPass to the Green sector, we just topped up the difference, which is $9.80 for a one-way ticket.
It would have been easy to miss the station. There was something wrong with the speaker system and the driver's announcements couldn't be heard clearly. Good thing ZQ was alert and told us when it was time to get off. The first thing we noticed as we walked out of the station was the lack of ticket gates. Which means that no one would have known if we hadn't bought any tickets. The second thing we noticed was that it was a lot colder than in Sydney.
After checking into the Blue Mountains YHA, we used our See Sydney Card for 1 day on the Blue Mountains Explorer Bus and for the Scenic World rides. We took the bus straight to the rides, and decided to take the railway down and the cable car up. The railway passes through a tunnel, but the distinguishing feature is the steepness of the ride, a whopping 52 degrees. The first picture shows a tour group in front of us boarding the train, while the second shows the view from the front while the train was descending through the tunnel.
At the bottom, we took a few pictures of the famous 3 sisters. There's a legend about how they were formed. Basically a witch doctor turned his daughters into stone to protect them from an evil monster, but in escaping from the monster he lost his magic bone, and is still looking for it to this day. The picture on the left shows the 3 sisters and some of the valley, as seen from the lower station of the scenic railway. The 3 distinct blocks on the left of the picture are the 3 sisters. If you can't see them clearly, don't worry, there will be more pictures of this famous attraction in the next post.
We took a short detour along a trail to Katoomba Falls, which was nothing but a small trickle of water. Perhaps it was the season. Next we followed the boardwalk towards the cable car, making a small detour to see the coal miner's village. The village was a bit of a disappointment, it was just a small furnished shack. I suppose it was to show us how the coal miners used to live.
The cable car ride was great, giving us a wonderful view of the valley as it ascended back towards the top. The pic shows zq, chris and ch in the very large cable car.
Lunch was at the revolving restaurant there. It was expensive, but we didn't want to waste time looking for eating places. Caught the Explorer Bus to the Gordon Falls trail and started a long trek in an attempt to reach another famous attraction, Wentworth Falls. The view along the way was great, and we stopped often to take pictures. There were many lookouts along the way which gave us a great view of the valley. The trail was well signposted and quite easy to walk on. There were even staircases for the steeper sections. Here's a picture of a waterfall we encountered along the trail.
After the waterfall, we climbed back onto the main road and continued our eastward journey to the next trail that would lead on to Wentworth Falls. We only had the Explorer Bus' map of the area. It wasn't to scale, and only showed the major roads. Thanks to zq's accurate navigation, we didn't get lost, but it was much further than we expected. We finally found the start of the trail, somewhere near what looked like a country club.
Here's a pic of us posing with the sign. Now why were we posing with this sign? See the A4 sized notice stuck onto the wooden sign? 
Here's another picture that will give you a better view.After walking all that way, we found out that the trail was closed!! So we decided to head back to Katoomba instead of trying to find a way to Wentworth by the main road. The walk back was uneventful, up to a point. It was getting dark and we had to cover all the distance we had walked earlier.
Here's a picture of the sunset, taken on the long trek back.The sun sets early in autumn, about 5pm, so it gets dark pretty early. Next it started to rain, so the 5 of us are now sharing 2 umbrellas, walking back in the dark and in the rain. We decided to head to Leura train station instead of walking all the way back to Katoomba. Now we realised that it was a good thing the trail was closed, or we would have been stuck on a bush trail in the dark and in the rain, and that wouldn't have been any fun at all, especially as it was getting colder.
As we neared the train station, I saw a car covered in what looked like ice. We guessed that it had come from a higher region where it was colder. Thinking nothing of it, we continued. Kev and I were in front sharing an umbrella, while the other 3 were behind sharing another. Suddenly, the 2 of us heard them yelping, then they suddenly ran for shelter. We wondered what the matter was, then realised that the rain had turned to sleet. Little ice pellets were now falling from the sky, and it was painful when it hit. Luckily we were already opposite the train station. However, trains on this line have a frequency of 1 per hour, so we had a long wait for the train. Ch managed to make an ice ball for zq to volley. Anyway, here's a pic of the umbrellas after we had reached the train station safely. You can see the ice on it.
After taking the train back to Katoomba, we had dinner in a very warm chinese restaurant, ordered pizza at Domino's Pizza, and visited the supermarket, mainly to buy a 12L tank of water.
We couldn't have had pizza right after dinner, so we had actually arranged to collect the pizza at 10pm. After a very cold night out, we were all looking forward to a hot shower, and since there was still quite some time till 10pm, we all took one. When it was time to collect the pizza, none of us wanted to change back, since we were all clean and had changed into sleeping attire. There was never any doubt that we would all go to collect the pizza together, so out we went back into the cold night in the attire you see in the picture, taken from the video camera and brightened up so you can see better.
Chris is holding the pizzas, dressed in a jacket and shorts, which was what all of us were wearing. We hadn't even bothered with shoes. You can see CH at the back in SAF sandals.
It had certainly been a most eventful day.
posted by cosine @ 11:07 AM 
