Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Hiking (lots)

Up about 8:30, showered, had breakast. Moving slow this morning, I'm in no hurry.

Walked down to the Explorer Bus office and bought the Lyre bus pass, which includes unlimited travel on their two buses for the duration of my stay (to get around to all the tourist attractions), a movie pass to The Edge, an IMAX experience about the Blue Mountains, and tickets on rides at Scenic World, which includes a gondola ride across a chasm, then a descent into the chasm on the worlds steepest railway (52 degree gradient) and a ride back up on another gondola. $50.

Back to the hostel, sat around with another guy who was in my room, an older guy who's heading to Bangkok in a few days, and he's nervous. He's asking me all kinds of questions.

Had lunch, then caught the 12:31 bus to the Katoomba Cascades dropoff at 12:37, and hiked all afternoon. Descended into the valleys, away from the frickin' cold wind. All the hiking trails into the valleys consist of stairs, either metal ones, built-up dirt and wood kind, or stairs chiseled out of rock.

Hiked past the Katoomba Cascades, Reids Plateau, down the Furber Steps, then followed the Federal Pass east, past the Three Sisters (can't see them from the valley floor, too much vegetation) to the Giant Staircase (1000 steps!). Unfortunately, the Giant Staircase was closed tue to a rock fall recently, so I continued on Dardonelles Pass, towards Leura Falls and Leura Cascades and finally exitted out of the valley about 4:10, and a 2 minute walk to the nearest Explorer bus stop, and waited for the 4:24 bus. It came, but it terminated at Leura townsite, I had to wait another 30 minutes for the next bus which would take me back to Katoomba.

While down in the valley, I saw some neat, large birds. The first was a parrot, I think, all black, but vibrant yellow near the shoulder/armpit (wingpit?) area. It flew away as I was getting my camera out. At the same time, I could here a bunch of rustling in some bushes behind me, I turned around, started walking back along the trail, and a big brown bird jumped out of the bushes onto the path. It had a long tail, and longer legs. He hopped around for a second or two, then flew off. A while later, I saw in the trees ahead a beautiful parrot (?), vibrant royal blue and bright, bright red. All I managed was a blurry picture (kinda like a bigfoot picture), then the bird flew away. Also saw, just flying above, a white and yellow bird, the same as the ones in the Royal Botanical Gardens that sit on you (see my photo album).

After all that hiking, I was tired and HUNGRY. Went to Coles and got chicken breasts and sauce and made sweet'n'sour chicken bits for supper and chocolate cake for dessert. And milk, I drink a lot of milk, ever since I started travelling in New Zealand, I've been drinking milk like crazy. Yesterday, when I went to Coles after getting to Katoomba, I bought a 2 litre jug, and I finished it at supper tonight. Mmmm, ice cold milk is sooooo good.

That brings me to now. Tonight, no plans, watch TV, maybe a movie on the big screen TV they have here, read some, dunno what. If anything exciting happens, I'll put it in the next journal.

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