Are those mountains blue?

We got up EARLY this morning to venture to the Blue Mountains.  Early is getting up and out by 8:30am on any day I’m not due to be at work!  The Blue Mountains are a 2 hour train ride from Sydney so to ensure we had a full day to explore we needed to make moves!  We purchases tickets for the hop on/hop off tour that would take us to various historic/scenic spots and the tour guide gave us a bit of history.  And the bus was so cute!  It was an old trolley car that had been made into a shuttle bus.

When we arrived it was nearly lunch hour so our first stop was to find something to eat.  The tour guide recommended a team room that had legendary scones so of course we had to stop and try those out as well.

There are no biscuits in Sydney, they are no where to be found…not even KFC.  HOWEVER, when the scones arrived at our table with cream and strawberry jam these looked JUST LIKE BISCUITS!  To further complicate things biscuits are called cookies here (and they say Australians speak English!).  At any rate I know how to get my biscuit fix now.  These were delicious…can you tell?

There was alot of crap interesting stuff in this store that I’m sure someone would treasure.  It always trips me out when I come across stuff like this though.

With full stomachs we were ready to conquer the world, or at least go on a bush walk like Dametria wanted (you know I am not one with the earth so I only gave in to this request because she can ALL THIS WAY and it’s her birthday celebration).    Back on the bus we spot this GORGEOUS peacock!  How random!  I’m still blown away by all the wildlife in Australia.

We stopped briefly at a set of statues called the three mysteries.  If memory serves me they stand for life, birth and death but I couldn’t even find this on Wikipedia!  Per our tour guide they were created by an artist who lived in Katoomba years ago and they face East overlooking the blue mountains.  Due to some strict council rules they have not been allowed to cut down the bushes/trees surrounding them so it is not as clear that they face east or that they overlook the mountains which is unfortunate because it makes for a good story!

The mountains were beautiful.  Reggie and I used to spend alot of time in Gatlinburg because we love how serene the mountains are and there are some great cabins up there.  I’ll be doing some research to see if we can make the Blue Mountains our equivalent of Gatlinburg.

The highlight of the Blue Mountains are the Three Sisters.  This is another rock formation created by erosion (similar to the 12 Apostles).  These structures are soft sandstone and easily eroded by wind, rain, and rivers.  Geologists say the three sisters will eventually erode away completely (so glad I got to see them while they are here!). 

There is an aboriginal legend that the three sisters were real sisters who fell in love with three men from a neighboring tribe but marriage was forbidden by tribal law.  There was a battle and the sisters were turned to stone by an elder who was trying to protect them.  The elder was killed during battle and no one else could turn them back to human.

There are some doubts that this legend is truly aboriginal and it is rumored that a Katoomba man created the story in the late 1920s to add interest to the landmark.

Then we came across some statues of naked aborigines.  I’m just not sure about this one and why this was necessary/ok.

I didn’t take a picture of the other two statues but this appears to be a replica of the three sisters and the elder who turned them to stone.

We got on a few rides, here’s on of them.  Don’t let it fool you this has to be the MOST UNSAFE ride I’ve ever been on!  The gates to the left don’t close!!  Thank God Reggie sat on that side because I would have flipped out!  This is the steepest incline in the world.  Length = 450 m, vertical drop = 250m.  Steepest incline is 52 degrees!!  It felt like a completely vertical drop down, but because the cars didn’t move too fast it was bearable.

We did a little bush walk (ie. nature walk).

And of course I couldn’t resist riding the horse.

We came across a miner’s lodge, I waited for the others to go in first :-O.

Thirty minutes later we finally arrived at our next ride.  We took the scenic route (I was outvoted) and I didn’t take as many pictures because I was more concerned with staying alert for any creatures or creepy crawlies.

There were more great views from the cableway but I was quite distracted after the guide said if you are scared of heights don’t worry we are just 4 seconds from the ground…how reassuring!

This was a long day (as you can tell by how long this post is!) but we had a really good time.  It’s always great to have house guests because we actually get out and see what Australia has to offer!