Blue Mountains

Here we are on the steepest train ever!!

Like I mentioned in my last post, we rented a car to drive the Great Ocean road heading for Melbourne. We heard good things about the Blue Mountains, and decided to make a stop to explore them.

We ended up getting a free upgrade to a bigger car because they were out of the size we originally booked. Curtis has recently wanted me to start mentioning how some of the crazy things we do are my ideas, but I want to say preemptively we are two different animals, Curtis and me.

You see it was my idea to sleep in the car, and to stop off at rest stops to sleep, and drive continuously. The thing is these were my motivators:

Australia is very expensive, and we are traveling all over. If we spend too much money in Australia, South-East Asia, THE MIDDLE EAST, or AFRICA…what’s really left for our blessed European vacation?

Also, there are tons of really cool things I wanted to do in Australia that increase our spending here significantly, and so why not cut where it counts the least. I’ve travelled tons in cars trading off on driving and have slept fine, and so for me it works.

Plus I read about how to camp and travel Australia, and that was the number one suggestion.

We stayed in a “super nice” place when we first arrived, and camped in our car, and stayed in under ground hotels, fun little cabins, and live-aboard boats. It’s been great! Not to mention that while we “Camp in our Car” we still park at Caravan resorts and spots, and use the amenities such as pools, showers, kitchens, internet, tv rooms, etc….

Did I mention that we decked out our car. The back seats fold down into a bed. We bought padding and pillows, and use our sleeping bags.  We have a cooler below the seats and our water, and each of us have a bag up front. It totally converts into a “camper”. Plus we have window blockers, a fan and mosquito nets for when we open the windows, though you don’t need them everywhere. We are safer and more comfy than in a tent, and about as comfy as a trailer, and it’s cheap!!

I guess you could say the difference between us:

Curtis  and I decide we should stay in Carvan Parks…

He picks one with perma-residents that look like gypsies, and possible retired prison mates. I pick parks unlike that, but that cost the same.

Rest stops:

Curtis picks a huge trucker station, which are known to be dangerous, at least by me.

I pick rest stops near bathrooms and Check in Shops where cars stop when they are too drowsy to continue, and Camp Australia confirms as safe.

Different yes, but equal? You judge.

Ok, Ok… So these two misrepresented statements were in-fact misrepresentations. They were total accidents and we left the caravan park immediately, and headed for a safer caravan resort.  The truck stop happened to be a gas station in the middle of nowhere and we were both too exhausted to drive and it was still “dayish”, but we accidentally slept through the night. Lol

Anyway, where was I? On the open road to the Blue Mountains.

Curtis started our drive on the right side of the car and left side of the road, but don’t worry about it. I faked like I had a steering wheel too for half of it and occasionally let in the accelerator and slammed on the break a few times. Both futile. I also continuously readjusted Curtis’s mirror so he couldn’t see, but at least I knew who was behind us… when I realized it I would put it back like I didn’t do anything. He was continuously readjusting.

After a few games of Chicken he had it down, and we rolled into Katoomba…I was still alive, but half asleep from the nerve tonic pills, necessary for any passenger of an experienced-driver learning to drive in the exact opposite way from “normal” It is much different from the timid 15-16 year old.

We found a Carvan Park, decked out our car, and went to sleep gearing up for the Blue Mountains.

The Three Sisters...at the Blue Mountains. You can actually hike up, over and down to the sisters. This is the view we saw of them from the sky-cable car, which actually is fairly close to the sistas. Australia has really helped me enjoy the little things again, and taking in the landscapes.

This is a view of the cable car when we got off. The interesting part are the blackened trees in-front of the bright yellow car. 2 weeks before our visit there was a forest fire. Australia is very combustible. You can't do fires when camping. It's nice though because most places have kitchens, and you can bring propane stoves. Cooking over the open fire is diff here.

This is a pretty waterfall you will notice as you are in the Sky-cable car with a glass window on the bottom of the car.

ooow...We are on top of it now!!

This is Curtis actually in THE yellow cable car!!

and if you did not get a good enough view someone went a little camera happy!!

The Blue Mountains are really beautiful rolling hills, that produce a blue-ish haze over them. Their mountains are more like our Appalachian Mountains than the Rocky Mountains. They are very old and there has been almost no movement or disturbance to raise them up. So what you see are old mountains beaten down by time, weather, etc. They are the same mountains as on Antartica, but with no movement. They are Beautiful..as shown! 

"Australia is a geologically ancient continent with no recent history of heavy glaciation, and is not at a plate margin so there is no new mountain building. What mountains Australia has have been heavily eroded by millenia of the effects of water, wind and sun."

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_Australia_have_such_small_mountains#ixzz1h34SpOhq

 The Blue Mountains is a magical place any time of the year. Glowing in autumn, cool in winter, colourful in spring and refreshing in summer. The Blue Mountains is densely populated by oil bearing Eucalyptus trees. The atmosphere is filled with finely dispersed droplets of oil, which, in combination with dust particles and water vapour, scatter short-wave length rays of light which are predominantly blue in colour. The Greater Blue Mountains was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2000 and was one of 15 World Heritage places included in the National Heritage List on 21 May 2007. 

I need this person to write my Christmas Cards!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Mountains_%28New_South_Wales%29#Geography

 

Cockatoos are everywhere, and they just hang out like pigeons!!

This is us before we took the RIDE of OUR LIVES.... on (look below)

The steepest funicular railway in the WORLD!! INFANTS can fall off...

Empty

FULL..and we are at the very beginning...going..going...going

Two miles per hour down this bad boy!

Hence Funicular! It was actually pretty cool!!

THE RAIN FOREST:

Upon entering my very first Rain-forest we came upon an old Coal Mine. Pretty Cool. To me rain forests were places you didn't coal mine..I'm learning so much

There was a beautiful walk way to stroll through this vine-y spot with ease. On Animal Planet's: "I Shouldn't be Alive" I watched a guy named Yassy being attacked by Ants and barely making it out alive.  They said.."In the Jungle everything is hungry, so don't touch the trees or plants either." Well, man am I glad the eucalyptus gum trees were mostly behind the railing, and that I did not have to walk on the questionable ground, or I may have pulled a Yassy. Writhing around in pain instead of standing up and stepping on said ants! Plus it protected the forest from us touching it! It was actually really awesome!

TERMITE MOUND. HOLY HUGE. I've never seen a termite mound in real life. TV and The Movie ANTS are how I see the world usually!!

Starring up at the beautiful canopy!!

So many vines. Can you imagine Tarzan right now, in Australia. What would he be like. He would be un-stopable on those vines, and probably take me back to live with him... and the koalas, and we would all climb trees and perch on branches that are way to small for us and could break at any moment..just like koalas do...Always livin on the edge. Yeah, and here they would probably call him zan because they shorten everything.

                    Curtis Take: Yeah, and then I would come in on vines, and kick Zan's trash.

Gum trees really do exists, who new they were the same as eucalyptus trees. Yes and Kookaburras really do sit in them and laugh!! The song is true! After this realization, and many many repetitions of "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree" I decided that American really needed a song everyone could sing about an animal that is almost everywhere. I call it " A raccoon sits on the top of a dumpster" sang to "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree".

A Raccoon sits on a Top of the Dumpster

A raccoon sits on the top of a dumpster

Beady little eyes, he looks like a monster

Runnnn, everybody run

That raccoons got rabies. -Julie Fullmer

Zan's Nemesis

Rainforests are so cool. Everything is a bit bigger. This was huge, close, and too personal right about our heads. He did not go the path is for people only.

Wentworth Falls WaterFall!

Look how steep this is!! Whoa mama

If you do the Blue Mountains, I highly suggest Wentworth Falls. It is beautiful the walk ways are wonderful. Groups of parrots and other lovely lovely birds fly over and it is so beautiful! We had a terrific time.

Me right under a small waterfall!

Wentworth falls with a rainbow in it!!

Us...and if you look closely the falls!

Ants here are seriously HUGE. We are always stopping to take pictures. It's incredible. 1-2 inches. Poor Yassy.

Helygabathin..how did I get up there!?

this is when we were underneath the falls and it was showering onto us.

And again a beautiful breathtaking sunset in Australia.