After breakfast, we followed the map provided by the YHA to the start of the Prince Henry Cliff Walk. The weather had cleared up and it was a beautiful day, although it was even colder than the previous day. Here's a shot of Katoomba Street.



We followed the trail to The Three Sisters. There were many lookouts on the way and we detoured to them quite often. The view was great and we stopped quite often to take pictures. As a result, it took us quite some time to reach The Three Sisters. Here's a picture taken at the start of the trail.



The Three Sisters is also where the Giant Staircase is. This is a 900 step staircase that descends to the bottom of the valley, which then leads to the trail that will lead to another staircase that you can walk up. If you choose to follow that trail further, you will reach the lower stations of the Scenic Railway and cable car which we had already taken yesterday. The staircase is very steep and narrow. There is even a warning sign that it is only for strong walkers. We followed it down for a while, until the bridge that lead across to the first of the Three Sisters. Took a short break on the bench there, then we climbed the stairs back up to the trail and continued along the trail to reach Echo Point. The short climb was already tiring, so it was a good thing we hadn't gone all the way down as we had originally planned. The wind there was very strong, and it was very cold. Here's a pic of CH further up the staircase, taken from the bridge. Behind him you can see some people descending the staircase. Nearly froze my fingers taking this picture.

At Echo Point, we went into the visitor centre, which was also a souvenir shop. Spent a long time there hiding from the cold wind and just looking around. I didn't see anything worth buying, but the others spent a long time looking at mood rings. Those are rings which change colour depending on temperature, and the colour is supposed to tell you the mood of the wearer. In the end, the others except chris bought them, just for fun.


We finally left the warmth of the visitor centre and went to the lookout point. The wind there was really strong. After a couple of minutes, chris and zq disappeared to take shelter, while the rest of us took the pictures. We finally found them in the warmth of another building looking through the shops, haha. Anyway, here's a picture of the famous Three Sisters, as seen from Echo Point.

We followed the trail to the eastern station of the Scenic Skyway, then walked back through the streets of Katoomba to the YHA. We went back early to rest, as we had booked an eco tour for the night. More on that later.

After taking a short break, we went out for an early dinner as we hadn't had lunch. The problem was, it was 5pm. All the shops which were open for lunch were about to close, and those which open for dinner don't do so until 530pm!! In the end, after walking all the way to the train station, we walked all the way back and had a little sandwich at a small shop near the hostel. They were about to close too.


The sky looked ominous at 530pm, and we didn't want to be caught out in the rain again at night. Although it had started raining, our guide for the eco tour showed up at 6pm and assured us that it wouldn't be as cold or wet under the forest canopy, so off we went. He drove us to an area near Wentworth. After parking the SUV at the side of the road and giving us torches, we followed him down a small and overgrown trail. Unlike the other trails we had walked on during the day, this one was much smaller and not as well kept. Some of the steps were missing and there were some tricky jumps, made even more slippery by the rain. Also, it was so dark under the tree canopy that I couldn't see my outstretched hand without the torch.

Along the way, the guide told us some interesting things about the trees we saw. He also explained the importance of swamps in the habitat. As we followed the trail down to the valley floor, we passed a large stone cliff. There, he told us to switch off our torches. In the inky blackness, we could see the tiny blue lights of the glow worms on the wall. Considering the cool weather, there were quite a lot of them. The guide told us it could be because there was no moon. He warned us not to shine our torches at them as the glow worms might think it was morning and switch off their lights. The lights are used to lure insects into their webs, then the glow worms will use them for food. As we continued on, he explained the life cycle of a glow worm. They don't eat when they are adults. All they do is to find a mate, lay eggs then die. We passed behind 2 little waterfalls. They are fed from the swamps further up. The swamps are not like our mangrove swamps. In fact they look like normal ground, just with no huge trees, but lots of dense vegetation. The vegetation is so thick you can walk through it, but some of it is rather sharp, and it'll probably be very painful to attempt walking through a swamp.

Just on the right of the path is a short steep slope, which leads to a pond created by a waterfall. We had to be quite careful so as not to fall in. We took a break at a picnic table under an overhanging cliff, quite near the waterfalls. The guide told us a few things about Aboriginal people, and we just sat there in the dark forest.

On the way back, he showed us a glow worm and its web. Kev tried to take pictures, but I'm not sure how they turned out as he didn't use a tripod. Anyway, here's a pic taken from my video footage, brightened and cropped. It shows the web of a glow worm. There's no point showing a picture of the blue light, because all you will see is a tiny blue dot in the middle of a black picture.

We got back to the top of the trail without incident and he drove us back to the hostel. The sandwich we had for dinner was nowhere near to filling us up, especially after our energetic hike through the forest at night. We went back to Domino's Pizza again, wondering if we should get 3 or 4 pizzas this time.

We still weren't sure how many pizzas to get, but this sign here helped us to decided pretty quickly. Yup, it was half the price of yesterday's pizzas. We were pretty shocked too at the drastic price cut. Plus the only condition was that the crust must be their classic crust. We ordered SIX pizzas. Note that we only have 5 people. To add to this, we went to Coles and bought 2 large packets of potato chips and some pepsi.

Back at the YHA, we got on with the task of finishing 9 to 10 slices of pizza each. We finished most of it in 20 minutes or so, but the last one took a little longer. Actually I've never eaten 10 slices of pizza in 1 sitting before this. For an idea of how large the pizzas are, refer to the picture in my last post which shows chris carrying the boxes.