Blue Mountains Weekend

Two weekends ago, I traveled to Katoomba, NSW for a weekend in the Blue Mountains with three other friends. I had first visited Katoomba during my first week in Australia, when Al & I spent a day hiking and exploring the area around the famous Three Sisters rock formation. This time, however, I was able to stay two nights at a hostel in Katoomba and spend more time exploring the area with great girlfriends!

Day 1:
We left Canberra around 8:30a on Saturday and arrived just before 1p in Katoomba. We drove past our hostel to check it out, then grabbed some lunch and headed straight to Three Sisters. With Al, we had walked down (and later up) The Giant Stairway, which was right beside Three Sisters but with the girls, we decided to take a more scenic route down into the via the Katoomba Falls trail.

Three Sisters

Jamison Valley

Katoomba Falls

We walked past Katoomba Cascades and Katoomba Falls into a cool temperate rainforest, which was surprisingly chilly, even in midday with 29 degree weather (Celsius ;p). When we reached the bottom, we followed the trail to the Great Scenic Railway, which took passengers up a steep incline to Scenic World. Because we were not able to buy tickets at the bottom and wanted to spend more time hiking, we headed the opposite direction, toward the bottom of The Giant Stairway, which would lead 1000 steps up and back to the visitors' center. Unfortunately, we each had brought only one or two water bottles and as we came closer to the base of the Three Sisters and into the full afternoon heat, our supply quickly diminished. Walking up the staircase, we were in direct sunlight for periods of time, and I began to feel extremely dizzy and nauseous (obviously dehydrated and at that point, out of water) and had to make many stops. It was not a fun trip up but we all made it and rewarded ourselves with Gatorade and LOTS of water from a nearby drinking fountain.

View of Three Sisters from the bottom of the Scenic Railway

Climbing the Giant Stairway...kill me.

One of the Three Sisters from the Giant Stairway

That night in the hostel, we met several other girls, one of whom had just finished the one-day tour that we had scheduled for Sunday, so we were able to see her pictures and videos, which made us even more excited. As we learned from her, the tour cost $195 through the tour company, but we had booked a package through Blue Mountains Backpacker Hostel, which included 1 night's accommodation, the full-day abseiling/canyoning tour, lunch with the tour, and a free pizza and beer at a local restaurant - all for $199. It appears that we got a steal!

Day 2:
The four of us got up early to meet at the River Deep Mountain High tour company office. There, we were fitted with wetsuits and given a waterproof bag and abseiling gear to take into the canyon with us. Additionally, as I had brought my GoPro, the company had a helmet with a GoPro attachment, ready to go. We were bused to a rocky outcropping in the Blue Mountains for the first half of our day, where we would learn the basics of an practice abseiling for our canyoning portion, which would include a final abseil over a waterfall.

One of the cliff faces that we scaled 

Kristina abseiling down!

We first practiced abseil basics on smaller cliff faces then moved to a larger face, which was perhaps 20m. It was so nice to abseil again! I had done a fair bit of abseiling in high school, mostly for JROTC competitions or camps, but it had been a long time, and I really enjoyed it!

Then we went to a beautiful lookout point for our lunch, which we had been told were "sandwiches" but man, were they undersold! Our sandwiches were delicious and from a local delicatessen.; we had expected cheap, homemade sandwiches I chose a ham sandwich which was on really good bread with spinach, sundried tomatoes, brie, and avocado. It was the perfect way to refuel midday...and we had ample opportunity for water refills, which was perfect.

Lunch and Blue Mountains lookout with (l-r) Kristina, Alisa, myself, and Marleen

After lunch, we were bused to the drop-off point for Empress Canyon, and after a steep hike down to the start of our canyoning adventure (...our sore thighs were already protesting the return hike), we got changed into our wetsuits and began.

Pre-canyoning

Our canyoning adventure was just so darn FUN. We followed the path that the river had carved into rock by going down the canyon the same way that water flows, which included several water jumps and a final abseil over Empress Falls. Also, the canyon itself was absolutely stunning. It was so lush and green and almost secretive, as if not many people got to see what we saw (even though I know that lots do). I tried to capture its beauty with my GoPro but as I've discovered with much of the Australian bush, it simply cannot be captured in a photograph.

Gorgeous Empress Canyon

The furthest person in this picture is standing at the top of Empress Falls

Empress Falls from below - 30m

After a tiring and amazing day (and on my part, a sore bum from slipping and wiping out across slippery rocks at the base of the falls), we were bused back to Katoomba and cashed in on our free pizza and beer at Station Bar, aptly named as it is right beside the Blue Mountains train station. Marleen and I selected a crocodile pizza (neither of us had tried crocodile yet) and cold beers, while Kristina and Alisa chose pizzas with "safer" meats and cold ciders. We were all tired and happy, and after our pizzas and drinks, full, so we lingered at Station Bar for a few hours, just enjoying the nice weather and great times.

Crocodile pizza at Station Bar & Grill

Finally, we returned to our hostel for a good night's sleep before our last day in the mountains.

Day 3:
We had decided that because visiting the Jenolan Caves only added 45 minutes to our return trip to Canberra, it was worth the side trip, so after checking out of the hostel at 9a, we headed west through the mountains to the Jenolan Caves.

The view for most of our drive.

Upon arrival, we signed up for a tour of Lucas Cave then did a self-guided walk through one of the caves, which came with our tour ticket. We also walked around the Blue Lake, which was just outside the Grand Arch. The stunning aqua color comes from the refraction of light on limestone sediments in the water.

Blue Lake at Jenolan Caves

Beautiful scenery outside the Grand Arch

Our tour was an easy walk (also with 1000 steps but these were spread throughout the tour and within the cool cave) with a fairly large group but was very fascinating and beautiful. I have always been fascinated with caves and spelunking - just the idea of an entire world underground - and Lucas Cave did not disappoint. The rock and crystal formations as well as different rooms of the cave were gorgeous. There was even a room called the Cathedral, with rock formations resembling chandeliers, a pulpit, and choir. Unique weddings as well as concerts are held there for the amazing acoustics.

The chandelier formation in the Cathedral in Lucas Cave

Beautifully ribboned crystal

This column was broken by the movement of the rocks over thousands of years

Stunning stalactites

Underground river in Lucas Cave

After our tour, we headed home, through the beautiful Australian mountains and farmland to Goulburn, then on the Federal Highway home to Canberra. It was an amazing weekend full of outdoor adventuring, exploration, good food, and fun with good friends!

For now, I have no plans until Christmas, when I will travel to Adelaide with Al's family for 2 weeks then Al and I will head to the Red Centre in January for 5 days at Uluru, and following that, I will join my host family at the coast for the weekend! I am excited for the upcoming trips and thankful for the experiences I have already had in this beautiful country.

Some quick updates on life in general:
- I have begun taking a French class in Canberra, just until Christmas break, and I am really enjoying my teacher (a Swiss native) and three classmates (whose spouses do international work with France, so they often travel there). Also, my teacher takes her daughter to French playgroup, which I attended this past week for the first time with Emily. It was lovely, and I got to practice my French with others who are native speakers or have a passion for the language. I have determined that I am not content being a mediocre speaker, and I truly love learning more and want to be fluent. I meet so many girls here who are near-fluent in English and speak their native language and sometimes even another...I have always wanted that to be me, and I am green with envy that I am not good enough yet. My future simply must include some time in a French-speaking country, and I have entertained ideas of moving to Québec with Sadie (because I cannot bear to leave her again) to work in the future.
- My host family will celebrate an American Thanksgiving this Thursday, and I am happy to invite a few friends over to share in our meal. I will also be doing some Thanksgiving crafts with the kids this week, and we have already made and are adding each day to a "Thankful Tree."
- Al is traveling in New Zealand now until Christmas, so I am missing him and green with envy about that also haha...I can't wait to explore myself and really wish I could share in his adventure but I am so excited for him and all of the beautiful things he is seeing and people he is meeting. :)
- It has begun to get hot in Canberra. It was 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) today, and I spent a lot of time at the pool with my friend, Lisa, and then with my host family at a friend's pool.

I think that's about it for now!

À la prochaine fois,
Alli