The Blue Mountains
The Blue Mountains
October 29th 2008
This morning I woke up to a rainy and gloomy looking day. I’ve been told that the Blue Mountains is alot cooler in temp than Sydney. So I’m glad I have my raincout and a thin sweater. I hoped that would keep me dry enough to explore the Blue Mountains.
I walked down to Central Station and met up with my friend Erik. He hadn’t been to see the Blue Mountains either and had taken a day off work to join me. We bought some breakfast at the train station, bought a ticket and got on the train for the two hour ride out of the city.
We arrived to a rainy, cold and foggy Blue Mountains. To sum up my experience there in one word “disappointing”. It was nice to spend time with Erik and we did so much careful walking along slippery stairs that my legs were really sore. But I couldn’t take photos as it was pretty constant rain for the four hours that we walked through the ravines and such. The fog was so thick that you couldn’t see 20 steps away from you. The few photos we did take turned out to be completely white frames. It was kinda funny actually. There we were trying to see the Jamieson Valley, the three sisters rock formations and more and all we could see was fog. Thank goodness we didn’t sign up for the rappelling down the cliffs, it would have been too slippery for that for sure!
I have to admit that I wasn’t 100% surprised that fog and rain was blocking our view of the Blue Mountains. Because once again it was exactly the experience that Bill Bryson had written about in his book ‘The Sunburnt Country”. He drove there on his own from Sydney and arrived to see nothing but fog as well. A little elderly couple informed him that the fog would be there for another few months. So he didn’t get to experience the Blue Mountains at their best either. After having a few other experiences so similar to what he had described in his book, I wasn’t surprised that this situation turned out the same. I would have just preferred it without the rain.
My favourite part of the day was when we got back to Sydney and ended up at a cute Indian food resto. The decor was nice and the food was yummy!
Thanks Erik for a rainy adventure day! :)
– Bonnie
