Trip of a Lifetime

Today we took a sunset trip to the Blue Mountains, perhaps the oldest mountains in the world. We took a small tour bus with 8 other people and our guide/driver, Derek. Derek was entertaining and very knowledgeable. He has had many jobs including day trader, ICU nurse, city bus driver, part time college professor, and retiree at 42, and now for fun he does these tours. Later he disclosed he had a PhD in philosophy. We loaded up at 10 AM and headed west.

Our first stop was a little before the mountains called Orchard Hills where we stopped to observe some kangaroos. One was standing by a bush nearby just watching us. We saw four others hop away from us in the field. It was very cool!

Our next stop was in a small mountain town called Glenbrook where we ate some lunch. Then back onto the bus to the Blue Mountain National Park. Our guide led us on an approximately 2 hour hike to Wentworth Falls and back. Along the way there were numerous breathtaking vistas. Fun fact: they are called the Blue Mountains because of the very fine oil the eucalyptus tree leaves give off into the air that reflect blue in the sunlight. One tree had flowers that if you ate them provided energy or after they died were good for starting fires. Ken headed back before the end as the hike involved narrow trails that were very high with sheer drop offs. Amy, Maddy, and Emily went merrily onward oblivious to the obvious danger of which that Ken was all too aware. The hike included an optional hike down to the bottom of the waterfall. It was just beautiful. The downside was that it was an additional 390 steps down and then back up. We made it!

After the falls we headed to the Three Sisters. The Three Sisters are three stone monoliths that aborigines believe are three sisters turned to stone by their medicine man father during battle to protect them (they wanted to marry three brothers from a different tribe which was what started the battle). But the father died in the battle and no one was able to undo the spell. On our way there we heard a weird noise from one of the bus’ rear tires. It didn’t seem to affect driving, so we kept going. While we looked at the Three Sisters our Guide checked out the tire. The outside of the tire looked like it had shredded. We all agreed to drive to the next stop and Derek was going to change the tire while we watched the sunset. The stop for the sunset was called Lincoln’s Rock. Once again Ken saw the obvious danger of being in high places that no one else did, and he went back to attempt to help our guide change the tire. Amy, Maddy and Emily shared some wine and cheese and crackers sitting on some rocks and watched the sunset over the mountains. No one was injured on the rocks including the woman being photographed by about 5 photographers, but there were the remains of two cars that had crashed on the hill. It took awhile after the sunset, but the afterglow was an amazing red. The guide was not able to loosen the lug nuts to change the tire so we were given the choice of driving back to Sydney slowly (80kph) or taking the train. Four of our group opted to take the train back, we stayed with the bus. After we got on the highway, we heard the rear tire blow out but since there were two tires on both sides of the rear axel, it didn’t have much of an impact. Derek got us all back to Sydney safely and we made the tired trek back to our apartment to get ready for New Zealand!

We ended our night packing, and since it is our last night in the land down under Amy, Ken and Maddy all tried vegemite! They were not fans. Our visit in Australia supported Alexander’s theory that no one has bad days in Australia. 😀Read more