Blue Mountains

While in Sydney I took a day trip to the Blue Mountains. About 30 miles west of Sydney, this geological wonder is misnamed. It’s really more a complex series of gorges than a mountain range. Nonetheless it’s stunning, but I’ll get to that in due time.

It was 25 years before early settlers managed to cross the Blue Mountains; tourists today have a bewildering number of options. I selected OzTrek, a tour company highly recommended by one of my tour books. There were about 22 of us, plus the tour guide, and we headed west in a van.

We took a detour to drive through the 2000 Olympic grounds. There I learned that the Olympic Village, temporarily home to over 10,000 athletes plus their trainers, became another suburb of Sydney after the Games were over. Some 6,000 Australians moved in.

Then it was on to the Blue Mountains, and here is an excellent time to say how glad I was not to be driving! At one point our tour guide was navigating the van around steep hairpin curves, one after another. It was good to be in a passenger’s seat. However, on the other side of all these hairpin curves we found a mob of kangaroos. (While Australians use “mob” frequently for groups and it has no sinister mafia connotations, “mob” is also the technical term for a group of kangaroos.) These were Eastern Grey Kangaroos, and they were lounging in the sun without a care in the world. I’d not seen kangaroos yet, because there aren’t as many in Tasmania. They have such funny little hands (or paws, but they really look more like hands.) One of them had a bulge, our guide pointed out, so there was a joey in her pouch, but its head wasn’t out for us to see.

This was in a national park, so feeding the roos isn’t allowed. However, I suspect they get a lot of tourists gawking at them, and as long as we were 20-25 feet away they weren’t bothered by us in the least. Our guide said that campers and tourists benefit the kangaroos because “a dingo isn’t going to run through your legs to attack them.” So we watched and took pictures as they grazed and groomed themselves. The grass where they were was a prime example of “marsupial lawn.” You’d think somebody mowed it, but that’s the kangaroos, wallabies, and other “hoppies” keeping it down. They’re much cuter than traditional lawn mowers.

We drove a bit further and got out for our first walk. There were bushwalks with OzTrek, which I quite liked. It was a lovely day with clear blue sky; we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Suddenly the Blue Mountains were stretched out before me: undulating gorges, heavily treed, with sandstone edges gleaming in the morning sun. The blue haze got thicker the farther I looked out, slowly melting the sharpness into blue. This effect is from the evaporation of eucalyptus oil.

Since it was a long way down and the ledge path was narrow, I appreciated the nice solid metal railing. (Nevertheless, for multiple reasons, this wouldn’t be a good excursion for young children.) As our group was taking in the delightful view, another tour group came huffing and puffing up. They had climbed all the way down and walked back up. My group had just walked to a nice lookout, and it was clearly steep enough that I didn’t want to trudge all the way down and, worse, back up! I wasn’t at all jealous of the panting, exhausted other tourists. Breathing easily, a few of us in my group commented on how the trees rather looked like broccoli.

We then retraced our steps, piled back into the van, and headed to Katoomba. Katoomba is one of the major towns in the area, and we had a lunch break there. From Katoomba it was a short drive to Echo Point, where the famous Three Sisters rock formation is seen from an angle you’re likely to find in most of the pictures of them. I quite liked the Three Sisters but noticed a smaller, fourth rock; it looked like one of the sisters had a baby. The gorge system, with small mountains or random rock formations, continued for kilometers until it was consumed by the blue haze. I drank in the beauty.

At this point we had a few different options for a bushwalk. I chose the walk most of the group did, which was a good walk down the Furber Steps, and then got a ticket to ride the Scenic Railway back up. It was a delightful walk through a cool rainforest and we got to admire Wentworth Falls from several angles. Our guide told us about a spot where you can see a man’s face in a rock with water cascading down. He was of the opinion that it was the most realistic rock face anywhere. (I, personally, think that New Hampshire’s Old Man in the Mountain was, until it crumbled, more realistic, but I kept that to myself.) Being a cool rainforest, there was a lot of water – water flowing in streams, water in the humid air, water cascading in waterfalls and making muddy spots along the path. Where the first bushwalk had smelled slightly tangy, this one smelled damp and earthy.

Eventually, after some very steep stairs, we reached the Scenic Railway, which is the world’s steepest. Riding it was a fun, if short, experience. The seats weren’t very comfortable, but I think a lot of that was because I’m so short I couldn’t get on the neckrest properly. At one point we went through a tunnel, and of course were at an incredible angle, so this is clearly not for the unadventurous.

The Scenic Railway isn’t part of Blue Mountains National Park. This is important because it means they let you feed the birds. When we disembarked, there by the platform was a large hanging birdfeeder with several king parrots and a couple of blue rosellas. The attendant asked if we’d like the opportunity to feed the birds. I was about to unzip my purse, figuring that the birdseed would be at least fifty cents, when he pulled a dustbin of birdseed out and offered everyone a handful. Australians are big fans of inclusive prices, and I suppose since it was $10 for a one-way ticket they could afford the birdseed. Later, our guide expressed disapproval of feeding the birds, because the birds might live in the national park. I, personally, was delighted. Now, I took the attendant’s remark that they were wild birds with a grain of salt. They’re wild in the sense that they don’t live in cages, yes, but tame enough to know where the tourists will reliably be feeding them.

The rosellas didn’t like eating out of hands and preferred the bird feeder or seed spilled on the platform, but the king parrots would happily eat out of anyone’s hand. Some would perch on your hand, but I fed a female who didn’t stay on my hand long. Feeling sympathetic, I moved my hand close to the railing and she resumed her meal. Then a male came over, and I was treated to having two gorgeous parrots eating out of my hand at the same time. King parrots have green bodies with red heads; the males have much more red. The attendant informed me that when two will eat out of one person’s hand they are a mated pair. Otherwise, as some other parrots thoughtfully demonstrated, they were territorial.

I only tore myself away from the parrots because I was afraid of holding up the group (I didn’t.) We then headed to one more stop, a nice lookout. The sandstone looked warmer bathed in the fading afternoon light, and it highlighted a rock feature known as Boar’s Head. “You Europeans with your dragon stories will probably say it looks like a dragon,” noted our guide. I could see a boar, but it did look more reptilian. In the end I decided it looked most like a crocodile, which seemed fitting because Australia has plenty of the creatures.

On the way back we saw flocks of white cockatoos, which are active at dusk. In one yard I saw a single tree that must have had close to twenty! The darkness put an end to my bird watching. As I settled in for the ride back to Sydney, I marveled again at how blessed I am to be here and have the opportunity to see and do so many wonderful things.