Sydney Part III

As I just mentioned, Monday we did a Blue Mountain tour. For some reason, traffic was horrible in Sydney that morning, and it took us over an hour just to get out of the city. As it happens, we had to drive through Sydney’s red light district to get out, and they guide told us that it started during the second World War when the American sailors stationed in Sydney would go looking for company, and it stayed even after everyone was gone. The first stop was by this river where the guy collected payment and there wasn’t much else to see. The next stop was at this place called “Flat Rock” where there was absolutely nothing between you and certain death if you slipped over the side. The view was amazing: pure, unobstructed forest and canyon and mountain just stretching for miles and miles around. That was amazing. We then stopped for lunch at a town called Leura, but it was pronounced funny and I can’t remember how it was. We ate at this Thai place that was really good, and one of the French guys on the tour had the gall to tell me I have a thick accent. Now I had to ask myself how in the world I can have a thick accent if English is my language and I don’t know any other languages. If you were to ask me, he was the one with the thick accent, and was in no position to complain about my accent. We then went to this section called Katoomba Falls, and that was really a cool sight as well. We rode a cable car across the valley that had a glass floor, so you could look down at the valley way below your feet. Then we rode this steep car down to the bottom of the valley, where there was a small section of warm temperate rainforest. This is caused by the high cliff face that keeps the sun from shining directly on the ground, so in a small corner of the mountains, one can find a rainforest. To top off the stop, we rode the world’s steepest train incline back up to the top of the mountain. We then stopped at this national park that is supposed to have a lot of kangaroos around it. It’s a little known fact, but kangaroo means “I don’t know” in Aborigine. The white man who asked what the animal was asked the Aboriginals what the animal was and he said “kangaroo.” Legend has it that is the reason the kookaburra laughs whenever we say kangaroo. The best part of the national park were the five kangaroos we saw while we were there. There was a male, two joeys, and two females hanging around. It was really cool seeing them in the wild. We saw tame ones in Cairns that you could just walk up to and pet, but these guys were just right out in the woods. Next, we drove through Olympic Park, and that was cool to see the place that were the focus of Sydney and Australia just ten years ago during the 2000 Olympics. To finish off the night, we took a harbour cruise from Olympic Park back to Circular Quay, so that was really cool to see the city, SOH, and bridge from the water at night. It really gave you a new perspective on Sydney. We then got dinner on the wharf, got coffee from Starbucks, and went back to the hostel to prepare for the early flight home the next day. Coincidentally enough, even though the flight down left on time, the flight home was delayed by half an hour. I knew something was wrong when it was the original scheduled time to board and the plane wasn’t even there yet. Finally the plane showed up, we boarded, flew back to Gold Coast, got the bus and train back to Brisi, and finally made it back to the apartment. For lunch, we used up the last of my peanut butter and jelly, and then for dinner I took Brett to this Indian place right down the street that is really good. Brett has never had Indian food so I wasn’t sure if he would like it or not, but he did so everything turned out ok. We still need to head to uni to print off our confirmations for Melbourne, and then we need to get to bed so we can get up for our flight tomorrow.