Blue, blue mountains

Ahhh, all that fresh country air sure does a body good.

I spent the first part of this week on a little getaway to a part of Australia known as the Blue Mountains. Just two hours by train from Sydney, the area is actually made up of about a dozen small towns and a huge national park. The Blue Mountains are not, as the name would lead you to believe, actually a range of mountains. Instead they are a series of sandstone cliffs and tree-lined valleys. It's more like a lush Grand Canyon than the Rockies, just to give you an idea.

I took this picture while doing a big hike on Tuesday called the National Pass.






The hike took three hours and led me through valleys, alongside the cliffs and past 5 or 6 amazing waterfalls. Parts of the Blue Mountains, like the area around the town of Katoomba, are very touristy with cutesy signs and shops everywhere and busloads of Japanese tourists rumbling from site to site. It's nice but can be a bit much after awhile. By contrast, the trails around Wentworth Falls (where I hiked) were almost empty. I think I passed 10 people in 3 hours of hiking. It was fantastic.


Here's a snapshot of Wentworth Falls themselves:

The Aussies didn't call these hills blue for nothing either. As you can see, the hills do indeed have a bluish tinge to them from afar. Why? Because the main tree in the region is the eucalyptus and the oils that it releases somehow appear to be blue. When you get up close, mind you, the trees are as green as any other. Still, it's a nice visual effect. I was half expecting the air to smell of eucalyptus too. It didn't. And this, I have to say, was a trifle disappointing. Imagine entire valleys filled with a scent like fancy hotel spas? I think I would have never left such a place. So, perhaps it's for the best after all.

But back to Wentworth Falls for a moment.

Unlike neighbouring towns Katoomba and Leura, Wentworth Falls is hardly touristy at all. You would think that a town named after a spectacular natural attraction in the midst of a national park might be interested in helping curious newcomers in discovering the town or at least finding the trails/waterfalls. Such is not the case.

I took the train from Katoomba to Wentworth Falls around 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Within 10 minutes I had reached my destination. I didn't have much in the way of a map of the town, but since it is no bigger than Lumsden (for those of you in Sask.) or Gibsons in B.C., I really didn't think it would be a problem. You can see where this is going, can't you?

There was an itsy bitsy tourist map outside the train station. I had a gander at it and figured out the way to the falls. It seemed quite straightforward. Well, off I started walking.

I passed the first street on the left but it wasn't named Falls Street, as the map had led me to believe it would be. I kept walking, thinking that it would surely be the next one. You know how crappy these small town maps can be, right? About two blocks later I was still no closer to Falls Street and started to think I should turn back.

Just then a middle-aged couple came strolling down the hill toward me. Perfect! My chance to ask for a bit of direction. The only problem? The couple was from Germany, had obviously never been to Wentworth Falls before either, and didn't speak great English. They let me have a gander at their Blue Mountains guidebook. Again, the book told me to hang a left on Falls Street and continue straight on down. Can't miss it.

I backtracked a little bit and still did not see a Falls Street. I did find a Sinclair Crescent.

Perhaps that's what they meant. You know how crappy street naming/signage can be in small towns, right?

So down Sinclair Crescent I went, past a number of picture perfect bungalows and green, green lawns. Within 10 minutes I stumbled upon Wentworth Falls Lake. This must be a good sign, surely. Round the bend in the road I went. This was a crescent after all.

Ten or so minutes later, that lake was a distant memory and I began to wonder why there were no roads intersecting with Sinclair Crescent. There was nothing but bush on my right and a long, 8-foot-tall fence on my left. I could hear traffic. I could see cars rushing by. I could sense buildings and people nearby. I just could not get to them. This was the bloody longest crescent I had ever been on in my life!

Well, imagine my total shock when about 40 minutes later I found myself on the Great Western Highway, no longer in Wentworth Falls at all but back in Leura, which I had actually passed through on the train on the way to Wentworth Falls. There was no sidewalk anywhere in sight and no way in hell I was walking back down Sinclair Crescent to the station. So, I waited for a sufficient break in traffic and skedaddled across the road. There really wasn't that much traffic so it's not as dangerous as it sounds.

Down another long road toward Leura Town Centre I went. This, depressingly, was not nearly as short of a walk as I hoped. At least another 30 minutes passed when FINALLY I saw Leura train station and its main street up ahead. There was a visitor info centre next to the station where I promptly made an appearance. The kind woman behind the desk had not only maps of Leura and Wentworth Falls but a bus timetable (where she clearly underlined both my stop and destination) and hiking maps for the area. Loaded with information, I happily went to the bus stop and waited patiently.

At 12:50 p.m. I made it to the start of the trailhead and began my hike, a mere 140 minutes after I started in the first place.

Ahh, the value of a good map and a bit of advance planning. Lesson learned!

I start my job as a server tomorrow. They have given me shifts for Friday and Saturday night so far with the promise of more to come. It's a temp agency so I'll be working in hotels, theatres, bars, restaurants and cafes all over Sydney. More to say about all of that (including Australia's fantastic wages for servers -- I'm not being sarcastic about that) soon.

Ta-ta.