More Hiking

Up about 8:15, showered, had breakfast. Slept good, did wake up once in the middle of the night, and buddy was snoring his face off, but he stopped about 15 minutes later, and I was able to fall asleep again.

Used internet, I had an e-mail from Kristin. Scott got a new passport (24 hour service, cost him big $$$), and they would be flying tomorrow. She says they'll probably be in Bali on Sept. 28, they figure.

Caught the 11:31 Explorer bus to ScenicWorld, then on the other Explorer bus for a 20 minute "Cliff Top & Valley Tour", a tour along Megalong Valley (it's mega long!!!), views of the Great Dividing Range and cliffs of Narrow Neck Plateau. Stayed on the bus, which went to Leura Cascades, where I got off hiked along the ridge, past Olympian Rock, Elysian Rock, Gordon Falls, Lyre Bird Dell (very nice!) and Pool of Siloam, which is even nicer, a lovely waterfall emptying into a pool. The pool at one time used to be deep enough that people could swim in it without touching the bottom, and harboured fish, but with run-off from development of the town in the last 50-100 years, silt has pretty much made it just a shallow pool. Too bad.

Then up the road, and walked back to Leura and caught the 4:05 bus back to Katoomba town site.

The black bird I saw the other day, would have been a yellow-tailed black atoo (I said in my other journal that the yellow as around the wingpits, I must have been mistaken).

I had supper at the hostel, checked internet again, and found out that no one at city hall (probably no one using Sasktel as an ISP!) can e-mail me! Sasktel's e-mail server has been blacklisted by myrealbox.com as being infected with a virus, and will no longer accept connections from them. So, I e-mailed both myrealbox and Sasktel, hopefully Sasktel can get themselves un-blacklisted.

I read for the evening. My current reading material is called "The Shipping News", it's a story about a fat American bloke, parents were from Newfoundland, who has two kids, and no life whatsoever, and after his cheating wife is killed in a car as she takes off with a rich guy to Florida, he packs up his two kids, and with his Aunt (who lived in Newfoundland as a kid), decide to start life a new on the rock. Having spent a fair amount of time in the Maritimes, I can relate to a lot of the stuff I read, about the kindness of the people, unemployment, the parties they have, etc. Almost done the book.