A Trip to The Mountains - Blue Mountains

Sydney, Australia May 7 to May 14, 2005

Thursday May 12th 2005. A trip to the Mountains.

We took a very early train to Blacktown, a major town before reaching Rooty Hill to meet our friends who will be going together with us to the mountains. We were in Blacktown by 8.00am and our friends were there waiting for us. We continued by train to a town called Katoomba, the starting point for a tour of the Blue Mountains, a tourist attraction.

There is a tourist explorer bus, hop on and hop off, that goes around the blue mountains and stops at the various attractions. We took that bus and got off at some of the attractions. We were not so lucky though as the weather was not that good. It was very misty with vision limited to about 100 meters only. So there was not much to see. We went along anyway since we were there already. No choice.

Our first stop was at the Scenic World station. This is where the cable car station and the hill railway station are located. It would have been nice to ride in one of these rides but since it was very misty and vision is limited there was no point in taking the rides. We would not be able to see anything. We just browsed around at the souvenir shops and waited for the next explorer bus to continue.

We went next to the Echo Point, which is at almost the peak of the mountain, and during fine weather the scene to the valley below would have been nice to see but with the mist…………… !! We just saw white coloured mist or were they clouds? drifting by below us. We hanged around here and waited for the next explorer bus to continue.

Our next stop was at Leura Town, a small town in the mountains with three streets of shops and commercial area and residential houses, mostly holiday houses, within the vicinity. I was told that many of the houses are let out as holiday accommodations and are very high in demand. We had lunch in this town at one of the Delis. The food was good, salads very fresh and crunchy and our appetite well whetted!! After lunch we walked around the three streets in town, enjoyed the mountain air and breeze while waiting for the next explorer bus to take us back to Katoomba town, from where we took the train back to the city. Our friends got off at Blacktown while we continued on our way back to the city. The journey from Katoomba town to the city took a little longer than two hours and we fell asleep part of the way.

We had some rest and an early dinner in the apartment. We walked to the shopping mall nearby but discovered that most of the shops were closing. So we just took a stroll and returned to the apartment by about 10pm.

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Sydney, Australia