For our last few days in Australia we rented a car and drove to Katoomba to do some hiking in the Blue Mountains National Park. Less than two hours from the beaches of Sydney we were deep into dense forest and mountains (max elevation of 3000 ft) abounding with waterfalls. We stopped on the way to our apartment and did a quick hike to Wentworth Falls. It was nice but given it was Saturday, it was crowded with tourists so we cut our hiking short and headed off to check in and hit the grocery store. Katoomba is just one of several quaint towns in the area. It had one main drag about a mile long at best, but plenty of restaurants and lots of little shops. The apartment was actually an A frame guesthouse with a loft bedroom and a nice fireplace all set up and ready to burn. It gets down into the 40's at night so we really enjoyed a nice fire.

We read that it was best to get an early start to beat the crowds so the next morning we packed a lunch and struck out for the Scenic World to Three Sisters via the Giant Stairway and back via the Federal Pass hike. It was rated as hard and was supposed to take five and 1/2 hours to do about 6 miles. The Giant Stairway turned out to be closed for maintenance so we had to take a detour that added about 3 miles. There were about a million stone steps down into the valley, which of course meant we had to climb back up out of the valley. The down steps were quite jarring and going up was killer on the buns. We went through tons of forest and saw many great views and waterfalls, but by five o'clock we were both quite tired from seven hours of hiking. Fortunately, there was a train that would take us the last 300 yards back up the mountain so we hurried to catch the last one. It boasts the steepest incline in the world at 52 degrees and has a glass roof so you can see the valley as you ride. It takes all of about five minutes and cost $14 each, but was well worth it that point. We were both hobbling, me with hurting calves and feet and Bill with another blister. We were glad to get back to the room where we had a giant Jacuzzi to soak in. We made a special stop to get some muscle reliving bath salts, which we definitely needed.

The next morning dawned rainy, but it was our last day so we packed up and headed back to Wentworth Falls to hike the National Pass Trail (It is the 'must-do' trail according to several guide books). This trail is also rated hard and our route was only about 6 miles long. It was Monday, so there were very few people on the trail which made it much more enjoyable. I kept having visions of Daniel Day Lewis running up the mountain in Last of the Mohicans as we hurtled down the steep steps into the Valley of Waters (it must have been my long flowing locks that brought those images to Dessa's mind). This really was a beautiful hike along the cliff sides with almost constant views of the vast valley and mountains in the distance. When we came to the Empress Waterfall there was a group of people rappelling down the waterfall. I'm sure the water was very cold plus it was drizzling and cloudy. It was cool watching them drop over the lip of the waterfall into the powerful flow. It was clearly hard for them to maintain position as they kept being twisted all around. At the bottom they had to let go and fall into a pool. We saw lots of yellow crested cockatoo's and a couple of superb lyre birds that look like pheasants with a few peacock feathers. There were lots of other birds we could hear but not see. Some of them were making really loud sonar-like sounds, just like a submarine would make. Very strange. We had a couple of choices for the final leg back to the car. We chose the one affectionately called the "short cut" as we were again quite tired after today's 5.5 hrs of hiking. Neither of us was convinced it was actually a short cut and with all the stairs it want easy either.

Since I still had only seen the dead kangaroos on our Great Ocean road drive, we drove about 1 hour to Glenbrook, to try to see some live ones. According to various websites, Glenbrook is the go to place in the Blue Mountains to see Grey Kangaroos. Guess what...no kangaroos to be found there either. Oh well, we tried. I can't complain after all the wonderful things we have done and seen. We did stop at the #1 restaurant in Glenbrook for dinner. Montes serves Italian food and we enjoyed a fabulous salad and the best lasagna we have ever eaten. That alone made it worth the drive. Then it was back to the Jacuzzi with another fire for our last night.

Tuesday morning it was back to Sydney where we killed time by going to an outlet mall, catching a movie and visiting Mad Mex one last time for Mexican food. Our flight to Dubai was leaving at 10pm and arriving at 6am after 14 hours flying time. Six days in Dubai and we will be posting our last blog from home. See you soon.


As always, higher resolution photos are available on Flikr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_and_ dessa/sets/


...Bill and Dessa