Blue Mountains/Royal Easter Show

In my last week in Sydney now, and I've eventually managed to take a trip out to the Blue Mountains, after 6 months of putting it off.. It's simply stunning up there, a short hop from Sydney (well, 100km away, although for Sydney that's pretty much a suburb) yet it feels like a million miles away from city life.

I get the train to Penrith, where meet Alicia, and we drive on up to Glenbrook. Here, we take our first walk, wandering in the morning across a fairly poor path to Red Hand Cave, an ancient aboriginal site featuring hand paintings in a random cave in the woods (as the name kind of suggest!). Its kind of underwhelming - a cave with lots of hand prints, the ancient aboriginal equivalent of nursery school finger-painting.

We fare much better in the afternoon, travelling to Wentworth Falls, where we grab some lunch overlooking a stunning view across the Jamison Valley, where 300m cliffs drop almost vertically down to the rainforested valley floor. After lunch we walk the beautiful National Pass path. It starts with a steep climb down a waterfall, a damp, lush mossy path - pretty slippery. A large group of canyoners are throwing themself down a waterfall as we head down. From there the path crosses along the side of the cliff face, around half way down. We travel a fair way along the path before getting to a roadblock around 3:15. Construction work on the path means its closed off until 4, so we huddle in a cave on the side of a cliff. As luck would have it, we watch a massive thunderstorm head down the valley, unloading massive showers and lightening right on top of us. After about an hour the worst of it has passed, and we're not sure how much longer we have to walk; its dark by 5:30 or so, and we've not brought a torch. So we head out into the rain, choosing to get soaked and risk the storm rather than spend the night huddled together in a cave on the side of a cliff. Its a good call - although we get thoroughly drenched, the worst of the weather has passed, and we're treated to stunning views of the Wentworth Falls in full torrent, swelled by the sudden downpoar. We still have to cross the top of the waterfall, where the path has long since disappeared, getting our feet wet in the rather wild looking stream poaring over the top of the cliff.

We eventually get back to the car just before dark, and drive to Katoomba, where we spend the night in the rather plush-but-old-school Carrington Hotel. Next day we do the touristy Three Sisters photo opportunities, take a walk along to Leura Falls (again a lovely walk) and take a trip down to the rainforest via the remarkably steep funicular railway/cable car combo, before driving back via the spectacular "Bells Line of Road" back route.

My other highlight of the week was the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Its kind of a cross between the royal highland show (yes, we saw some goat-judging competitions) and a funfair, complete with circus sideshow, high-dive shows and "showbags" - large of utter crap designed to attract the spending power of pre-teen kids (of which there are literally millions there). Highlight though is definitely the circus sideshow. It starts tamely enough - sword swallower; hula hoop world champion; acrobatic performances - before taking a bizarre twist with a female "performer" using an angle grinder in various suggestive poses on a metal plate welded to her groin. I kid you not! The audience is in equal parts bemused (the 4 your olds sitting cross-legged intently watching at the front), offended (the parents of said 4 year olds), and ending themself laughing at the inappropriateness of it all (err, pretty much just me actually). It finishes even better, the sword swallower (who has a worryingly large bandage on his right hand) attaching two irons to his eye sockets before shaking them from side to side. Good, wholesome family entertainment. You won't be seeing the likes of that at Ingleston, I'm willing to bet.

4 Apr 2007

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