Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Blue Mountains

We went to Blue Mountains last Friday. By train, it is two hours from the city, so we chose to set off in the early morning. I suppose now is not a bad time to go to the Blue Mountains, for it has not gotten too chilly yet. It was quite cold when we first arrived but once we started trekking and as the morning wore on, we felt warm enough to shed our coats.

Here are some views of the mountain range:
This and the following pic were taken from roughly the highest point of the mountain range, known as Echo Point.
Another view from Echo Point. These two pics don't show off the "blueness" too well.
But this one does. The blue colour is a result the sunlight passing through the tiny oil droplets released from the abundant eucalyptus trees there.
As does this pic. The eucalyptus trees are also why the summer forest fires are so notoriously difficult to put out once they get going.
A closer look at the eucalyptus trees.
Here's one that shows off the rock structure of the cliffs rather well. Occasionally, I come across news of people falling off these cliffs. These are almost certainly fatal. The most recent case took place just a few weeks ago.
Here's the most famous rock structure of the Blue Mountains, known as the Three Sisters. A long long time ago, there used to be seven.
An alternative view of the Three Sisters after descending for about two-three hours.
Before the lengthy descent, we had actually gone the other way to take a closer look at the Three Sisters. This pic was taken from atop one of the sisters.
This is the Katoomba Cascades. By the time we reached here, we had walked for around three hours (including the thirty minutes walk from the train station to Echo Point). It had been a continuous descent and boy, it was tough going!
That's the Katoomba Falls on the left. By the time we reached here, we had trekked for about four hours and nearing the end of our descent. In all, we took four and a half hours to descend from near the top to near the bottom.
You would think by the positioning of this pic in this post, and by its content that this was taken on the trip back to the city, dogtired from the day's trekking.

Nope. This was actually taken on the train ride there. The hooded guy is of course Dan, with Stef leaning on his shoulder. Needless to say, they slept on the way back too. How I envy friends who can sleep on transport. I simply can't!

9 days to go.

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