There was a lot to see and there was a HUGE crowd.. but to be honest after having a couple of panic attacks of wanting to crawl back in I was totally done by about 1:30pm and wanted to catch the first train to the city.. But Eminem inspired me to stay and aksed me if I was going to make the most of the opportunity or just squander it... Weeelll.. no one calls me chicken.. I'd seen the map of the hop on and off service before getting onto the train platform and saw an interesting point in the blue mountains called the Honeymoon point and I told Coco(my wide eyed handsome baby) that mommy will be here someday with daddy.. I thought that'd be an interesting place to check out to make sure it was worth visiting..
The whole of Katoomba is beautiful and the trail that seemed giant big on the map is not really that big the walk from the echo point to the scenic world is just that.. really not that long.. but superbly beautiful. I was lucky enough to have gotten a weekend when it finally wasn't raining and the winds blowing my hair off so watching the valley below in the mildly golden sunshine was a bliss...
I took the stairs to the Katoomba cascade and its an amazing spot for photos. I was lucky enough to have mine taken (not posted here but on my FB ;) But here's a photo of the water cascade I took with my clouds white balance retouched a bit (I even got a compliment for my camera, Fujifilm HS30, which I think is crappy but apparently it put someone's super expensive Nikon DSLR to shame.. so to return the favor I gave the lady a crash course in getting different tinges to the photos just by altering the white balance setting... really I was just passing on the kind knowledge I'd received on my Canberra trip from a lady while I was waiting in the queue for the Gold and the Incas Exhibition).
I saw the rare Kookaburra and tried to get some shots of it but couldn't quite focus on him.. I do have a shot of him in just a fuzzy feathery flight which I'd like to share through:
On the track to the Katoomba waterfalls there's a small waterfall place that you can climb down to which I did because it wasn't that muddy Its a nicely serene place to just sit and not be bothered by the bypassers.. unluckily I had a balloon from the winter magic fest tied to my knee (because I had no place else to tie it onto) that was spotted by a nosy tourist guyand was like "hey look there's a balloon down there..." and blah blah and totally spoiled my calmness so replied back politely in a "ferk yew" and climbed back up.. When I was further up on the track saw back to where I"d gone down realized how goddam close I was to the edge of the vertical cliff and if I'd slipped I'd end up near the end of a very vertical fall... which I assume wouldn't be pretty :)
The stairs are fun to go down when goin from the echo point to the scenic world but are a bitch when climbing back up.. It was getting late and I wanted to just go back home.. unfortunately I didn't have Dorothy's pretty red shoes so I just had to climb all the steep stairs back up.. Its sunday night now and my calfs are still a little mad at me for the walk. It was totally worth it though.. It isn't a long walk but its very very scenic. There are a couple of my favoured spots on the walk.. one where you're coming back from the scenic world and there is no guard rail/hand bar and you get this amazing 230degrees view of the sleepy valley and the second just is off the track where you can sit with your feet dangling off the edge of a small cliff and just sit there listening to the badass currawongs who like the sound of their own whinging echoing off the vale.
So worth the visit ..considering that I'd almost decided to cancel it considering the crowds and all!. But to be honest it was way below 20 degree.. must've been 10 or so.. but to the Blue Mountains' credit it didn't rain on the parade.. only rained way late in the evening after about 5pm
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