Katoomba, NSW

~ 7:03 am: Just finished watching a sunrise from my cousin's place in Tregear so beautiful and so perfect at moments it looked like an idea of a sunrise, actual egg-yolk on the horizon rays of creamy gold light streaking up to the sky through a fluffy pile of pink and purple clouds, the moon hanging opposite in the blue morning sky. The birds are still a marvel to me, a whole new symphony of morning. Lots of Australian magpies, a few morning doves I recognizes, lots of little twittering black and white birds I've got no guesses about yet, and white parrots and/or sulphur crested cockatoos (I can't tell them apart from the air yet).

~ Today: KATOOMBA! A place in the Blue Mountains (so called for the blue color they get from the eucalypts, or so I hear.)

~ We breakfasted and headed into the mountains. The drive from Tregear was only an hour or two, and pretty soon the views from the car turned into vistas as we climbed into the mountains. Driving into the town, Katoomba feels very much like a very small town perched on top of the world. Streets seem to give way to sheer air and views as long as the eye can follow in every direction. We headed to the park visitor's center, where a platform extends from the parking area over the valley, and on a clear day (which we very luckily had) the sweeping view shows miles and miles of rainforest and rock features.

~ Ben and I scampered down a path that took us to the Three Sisters rock formation. The Three Sisters is the European's version - apparently, according to the sign, the Aboriginal version of the story is the Seven Sisters, and relates to the Seven Sisters/Pleiades constellation. The path was pretty, and not terribly long considering how far away the Sisters looked from the overlook.

A Sister.

Back up the cliff!

The rock of the Sisters up close

The Secret Stair!

~ And so, it was pretty. From there we jumped back in the car and Yvonne drove to the entrance to the Scenic World park (I know, I know, the name is a little on the nose, but trust me, the park's interface with the Blue Mountains is amazing). Scenic World hosts the central hub for a Skyway cable car across the mountain pass, a Railway that was repurposed from Katoomba's mining days and drops screaming visitors straight down through the rainforest growth at a fifty degree angle (while playing John William's theme from Indiana Jones, of course), and a Cableway tram that pulls you back up the mountain for a much needed spot of lunch. At the end of the Skyway is a hike down to a waterfall and a path along the river until it turns into a much longer waterfall all the way down to the valley floor below, and at the end of the Railway is a boardwalk through the rainforest.

~ Impossibly, these three completely distinct tour rides are all staffed by a man named Andy. Andy is fantastic. He apparently speaks every language known to man, and greets each passenger individually and with a degree of enthusiasm that seems disproportionate to the number of people he must greet every day. He asks around where everyone is from, does an excellent running commentary of the sights visible from the various skyways (repeating himself in whatever combination of languages is required for the minutes-long trip), and congratulating those passengers who were scared to step foot off the ledge.

* He was awesome and really did seem to be everywhere at once. He took us on the first cable car across a  huge valley with a beautiful waterfall...

...where we had a lovely nature hike. Andy turned up again on the Cableway (on different side of the park) to take our cousins back to the visitor center, and we ran into him during our own assent. Actually, once we reached the top of the Cableway, Andy suggested that we wait until everyone left, get the premier standing room by the massive window of the cable car and ride it back down again just for the view. Boy was he right. Descending into a rain forest by cable car is an unforgettable experience. Which brings me to the rain forest itself. It has been a lifelong ambition of mine to one day walk in rain forest and it was everything I hoped it might be. Cool and just a little damp, there was green and plants I did not recognize everywhere. Also, there was some man made beauty interspersed with nature's own. Intermittently placed in the trees along the elevated wooden walkway we were on were works of art and sculpture. The were each done in such a way that they accentuated the vast and untamed nature that surrounded them. The only other man made items that we passed were pieces of ancient debris from the nearby mine that was cool enough for the builders of the park to leave there. One such example was a wheel which used to be part of pulley that visitors could reach out and spin from the walkway. Even though the mine has not operated since the eighteen hundreds and has not been serviced since, the wheel spins flawlessly with just brush of the finger. But the Germans made it so what did you expect? After a lengthy and wonderful walk through the trees, we decided it was time to rejoin our family, and not a moment too soon. Just a we reached the cable car overhang a huge rainstorm of... well, rain forest proportions hit. It cleared briefly as we took the Cableway up and back down to forest floor and we were treated to a view of mist swirling around the tree covered hills and valleys that seemed to stretch on forever. After a short hike, during which we stayed mercifully dry (a two hour car ride with wet pants is nothing to scoff at) we made it to the railway overhang. In less than a minute, the skies opened again with rain and hail this time. As the railway platform is well above the forest floor, we watched rain and hail pouring into the trees from a birds eye view.

~It was awesome. Truly, magnificently awesome. The hail (bigger than a pea, smaller than a marble, and oodles of it) pounded on the tin roof of the platform storm shelter, rain came down in buckets and sheets of droplets so fat they were nearly the size of the hail pellets themselves. The wind pushing the clouds through the mountains continually opened pockets of visibility through the mist and steam and dark gray storm clouds, and closed them up again. The storm lightened enough that the Railway began running again, and a remarkably, mercifully dry car arrived down the tracks. The Rail cars were completely open on the side with the exception of a thin white chain that sort of indicated that you might not want to step out or hold small children or handbags out over the side while the steep descent and ascent were in progress. We scrambled into the front car and watched the rainforest drop away. 

~ We arrived back on the top platform just in time for the second wave of the hailstorm to hit. We rejoined our cousins on the cafe platform on top of the world and the skies continued to pour. For a time. In in the space of a few short minutes, the storm cleared again, and for good. The sun returned to warm the now very cool afternoon. As we returned to the carpark, wowed and happy and still remarkably dry, the mists continued to rise over the mountains.