Letters to home (#4)
Warning - it is a very lengthy mail - so all office goers - please read in installments at your own spare time!
Hi All,
Nama Nama to everyone :)
How have you all been? It is midway between summer and monsoon in India - take care of your health - we are all prone to viral fevers in this period - so be careful.
The past weekend was one with brilliant weather in Sydney and nearby areas. And I utilized it to full extent - well, at least for one of the days on the weekend. After having researched on the weather forecast for the weekend in the Blue Mountain area - I was glad that it was clear and sunny. Next thing to do was to call up my friend (the OEC batchmate) and plan for the weekend. Idiot that my friend is - he had visited the Blue Mountains in an earlier weekend with his manager and his manager's wife - his interest lying with his manager's wife (who was apparently pretty and flirtatious) and not the Blue Mountains! So I was annoyed - because there went my chance to get some snaps of mine with pretty scenery in the background - I mean the pretty scenery of the Blue Mountains, not the lady in question!
Nevertheless - I had to use this weekend. Since my departure is now fixed for July 11th, I had only three more weekends to do any sight-seeing/shopping/meeting friends. Since all three are priority events - I decided to go alone. I could atleast see some wonderful places and etch them in my memory - if not in my snaps with lovely views in the backdrop. The plus factor was the fact that Saturday the 21st June was the day for the annual Winter Magic festival at the Blue Mountains - and that was the day I had decided to visit the place.
I woke up early on Saturday morning (5.30 A.M) because the first train to the Blue Mountain area was at 7.18 A.M. (one train every hour). The station is about 1.5 km from our place, and though there are buses - they are not that frequent in the early hours of the morning. I left home around 6.30, hoping I will catch some bus or the other. After reaching the bus stop I realized that the next bus was only at 7.10 - too close to comfort. I started walking - worrying that I might miss the first train and will therefore loose an hour in the process. Thankfully I was not late, there was no queue in the ticket counter, and hardly any passengers in the train! The trains in Sydney are double decker - and I took up a window seat at the upper deck with my camera ready to click snaps if I come across pretty sights as the train chugged along. The journey was pleasant - and not many passengers boarded my coupe. And yes - I was too lazy to click any snaps from the train - because I was engrossed at looking outside the window at the countryside. As the train approached the Blue Mountain area, I was surprised to find the stations in the Blue Mountain area so empty and vacant. Since it was the festival day, I had thought the area will be overcrowded with visitors and tourists like me. But on the other hand - there was barely any person on the platforms.
I arrived at Katoomba, my base station, at 9.15 - the journey taking approximately 2 hours. And the moment I came out of my train coupe, I felt the chillness in the air. The coupe was warm and cozy and I had to remove my jacket. But the platform scenario was different - cool breeze flowed around and my fingers were frozen immediately. I just had a jacket with me and I thought a set of gloves would have helped a lot. Katoomba is the main tourist destination in Blue Mountains. My train ticket was clubbed with an Explorer Bus which took to all important landmarks in Katoomba and Leura, another town/village in Blue Mountains. The bus usually started from the main street of Katoomba, which was right across the railway station. Since it was the Winter Magic festival day - the route was altered and the bus started from the other end of the railway station. I walked down the main street, and people were starting to put up stalls for the festival. There was a bit of hustle but then the numbers were not huge by any strecth of imagination. I thought it must be a quaint little festival in this village/town and decided that I will come back to the festival area later after I had visited all major places.
I boarded the bus at stop 1 around 9.45. The driver was a pleasant old man who greeted all of us on the bus and was very informative about the stops in the route. With not many people on the bus, I was wondering if Blue Mountains are as appealing as it sounded when I went through numerous websites acclaiming it as one of the prettiest places on earth. The entire Blue Mountain area is listed as a World Heritage site. The first major destination was the skyway station for scenicworld - a company which provided skyway, cableway, railway, and broadway services for certain areas of the valley. The skyway would have taken me to the main scenicworld station - where I could catch a railway or cableway to the Jamison valley down at the bottom of the cliffs/hills where Katoomba & Leura are located. But I decided to skip the skyway because I wanted to walk down to the valley - there is no otherway I could see the rainforest in full details. I got down at the stop which led to the Katoomba cascades - the start of the waterfalls in Katoomba. The cascades were - well, a touch disappointing because the water levels weren't too high. With such heavy rainfall in the recent past - I thought the waterfalls would be flowing with huge quantity of water rushing down the slopes. Nevertheless the site was pretty and my interest levels increased with the lush green surroundings.
I continued further down the valley along the waterfall route in what is called the Furber Steps. The walking/trekking path was narrow and was concreted at times, while on other occasions it was muddy and damp. I wondered that in a pleasant day like this the conditions were soggy on the trekking path - what would it be like when it was raining. And contrary to what it felt when I landed in the railway station, the rainforest was warm and cozy. With huge lush green trees covering the valley, the openings for wind and sunlight to come down to the valley were few. And since I was walking with a jacket on, I was actually pretty warm (and sweaty in the arm-pits). I just saw a single bird in the entire time I spent in the valley - though I heard a lot of noises throughout my trek. I could not identify what it was, but from the looks of it - it seemed like a pea-hen. Again with such dense forests, one would imagine there would lots of animals/birds around. Probably the presence of people made them go deeper into the valley where there are no trekking paths. Speaking of people, there were long durations when I was walking alone and I hardly saw anyone doing it the hardway - maybe they just went to scenic world on the skyway - few nature lovers perhaps?
I trekked on to the scenicworld railway station in the valley - and visited an abandoned coal mine site nearby. Apparently, the scenicworld railway is the steepest inclined railway in the world (52 degrees) and it was initially used to haul up the coal from the mines to Katoomba town above the cliffs from where it was transported to Sydney. With the mines gone a long time back, the railway is now used for tourists by the scenicworld company. I went up the railway with a one way ride costing 10 Australian dollars. It was a 3-4 minute ride up, but was thrilling and scary for whatever length it lasted! Once back up - I went to the scenicworld base station and bought some souveniers - koalas and kangaroos that is :) The explorer bus came to scenicworld after some time and I hopped on to go to the next stop - the echo point.
Echo point is one of the locations where toursits keep yelling to hear their echoes resonating across the valley. With so many toursits (the numbers had swelled from the morning), I could not differentiate which one was my echo and which one was the one the others were yelling. From that area, I could see the famous 'three sisters' rock formation. This rock formation is very reknowned and there is a mythical story behind its name. The following is the abstract from wikipedia that I found online:
"The modern day tourism industry has created a legend that says that three sisters fell in love with three men from a neighbouring tribe, but marriage was forbidden by tribal law. Battle ensued, and the sisters were turned to stone by an elder to protect them, but he was killed in the fighting and no one else could turn them back. This legend is falsely claimed to be an Indigenous Australian Dreamtime legend."
With having seen the pretty sights from the cliffs - now it was time to either take lunch or go down the valley again towards the Leura waterfalls. I decided to skip lunch because I wanted to be finished with all trekking so that I can end up in the Katoomba Winter Magic festival. I could eat something in the festival and therefore got down at the trekking stop for the Leura waterfalls. By this time I was already tired and I just egged myself on for some more trekking. The trek this time was more strenuous and the valley was deepre than what it was near the Katoomba falls. But as the adage goes, more pain - more gain. Leura cascades were much more beautiful than katoomba cascades. I wanted to see the entire might of the waterfalls deeper in the valley. I chugged along, going down steep steps and inclines. I also realized that the way back up will be tough as it would be very steep back up. I saw an alternate path which was connected to the Katoomba scenicworld railway station - though it mentioned that the trek is rough and dangerous and is advised only for experienced trekkers. I could have walked straight from scenicworld to this place - only - it would have taken me 3-4 hours :)
The trek back up was difficult and after overcoming several tough stages, I was fortunate to get lovely lookouts of the entire valley floor beneath. It is a breath-taking place and is ideal for hoenymooners I guess - provided one is able to walk for long durations along steep inclines. Tiring yes, but rewarding all the same! I skipped the George falls - I was too tired and hungry by then and it was almost 3 in the afternoon. And I had had enough of rainforests by then :) At the point where I came out of the trekking path was a small toy and railway model museum/house. Entry was worth 12 dollars and photography of the toys were prohibited. I entered and saw one of the oldest houses in Leura. It was filled with toys on two floors and I was amazed at the collection that was available - certainly it would be a child's delight to visit such a place. The railway models were also very beautiful (and tiny). They were working models, one could press a switch and get the trains to move across dummy stations, tunnels, and valleys.
I boarded the explorer bus again to go back to Katoomba and then I went to the main street to see the festival. By now, the crowd was huge and the street was jam-packed. Street performers, musicians, dancing groups, clowns, small shanties which sold everything from clothes, to face masks for kids - it was festive atmosphere all around. It seemed like 'fancy dressing' with people dressed as dragons, witches, clowns, animals, etc. And it was a welcome change for me with so many vivid colours all around me. Over the past 5-6 weeks, I have seen mostly black, white, and grey in the usual clothing of Sydney folks. Here people were dressed in several colours and it was a vibrant joyful scene. I clicked a single photograph but I managed to get more from the web. I ate Chicken Satay sticks (well, seemed like kebabs) from a Thai food stall. It was cold again and my hands were freezing. With the festival dying down, I decided to go back to Sydney. I caught the 4.25 train to Sydney and almost dozed on my way back.
It was a hugely satisfying day and I was very tired at the end of it. I did not go anywhere on Sunday because I wanted to take some rest. I have captured a lot of photographs and have put comments wherever I could. Have a look at them at the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sumitspeaks/BlueMountains
Ok, that's it for now - sorry for the long mail - but that is me - loooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnng descriptive stories :)
Regards,
Sumit
