Blue Mountains

Front load 'em with pictures, I say.














We decided to get out this weekend and headed out to the Blue Mountains. It was colder there and we didn't really dress for the weather so we just kept moving. We took the train out to Katoomba and walked to the edge of the canyon.

We were just winging it and found some stairs down. Actually there were about 900 steps, and it was so steep I that if you slipped you were likely to just bounce right off the cliff face. There were sections that were carved right into the cliff. It was by far the coolest trail I've ever been on. Below we could hear tree frogs.

Once on the bottom we just hiked without really taking in the forest; It just wasn't as impressive as the way down. We reached a spot where there was an incline railroad and a cable car to haul people back out and decided to keep going west a little more, and it was worth it. The trail got rustic real fast and the sound of mooing tourists slowly dissipated until we were alone and found a nice cliff to end our hike in a rest. There was a 4' thick seam of coal and alluring mine shafts were sadly closed off.




Clouds were coming out over the canyon and evaporating giving really nice splashes of light across the valley floor. We took the cable car up and headed back into town.



It was getting dark and we stopped to eat. Across the street in a Thai restaurant there was a really good Kung-Fu movie playing. After seeing a guy flip off an elephant tusk into his foe I could no longer resist and I stopped in to ask what it was. "Ongborg - you can get in Thai market." With a little search savy I've found it online - Ong Bak 2.
Looking forward to it.







We got on a late train back to Sydney. We thought our adventures were over and were sharing headphones when there was some commotion and some drunk teens were holding the doors open. The conductor radio'd back to get them to stop and they did. The next thing we knew there was an even bigger stir and I looked back to see this pretty massive drunk ugly dude pounding the crap out of a 16 year old (also drunk) between the cars. I've never seen such a one-sided fight in my life. It ended with big ugly looking pretty proud of himself and the tweens defensively shaming him for beating up a 16 year old. Oh yeah but then the train stopped at the next station, presumably to let the cops show up and the teens got on the opposite train. I don't know where the big dude went but we eneded up stopped at the next station too and the cops showed up and searched and everyone was gone as they are wont to do... we stumbled home late and tired around 10pm.

Katoomba and the Three Sisters:


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