Plus I wanted to do a bit of bushwalking (that's Aussie for hiking) among the eucalyptus trees and try to figure out why the early British settlers couldn't conquer these mountains, which pale in comparison to the Rockies or Sierras.
We hadn't planned for this leg of the trip beyond booking a hotel room. So when we ran into fellow travelers in Cairns and Sydney, we would ask if they had any recommendations for the Blue Mountains area. The repeated advice from both locals and foreigners was the same: Tour the Jenolan Caves.
But the caves aren't part of the national park, I whined. And the train doesn't go there. And it's more than 75 kilometers away. That's a whole day wasted to drive out to the caves and back. We only had one and half days scheduled for Katoomba. My mind was cluttered with excuses.
Luckily, my sisters talked some sense into me. "If everyone keeps talking about how cool these caves are, then shouldn't we see them?" Rachel pointed out. So the next morning we arrived at the bus shuttle tour place determined to see the caves that day. Arranging it involved quite a bit of scurrying around, but at 10 a.m. we were on the bus heading east toward the caves on the Great Western Highway.
Our guide, Garth, was a local character. He gave us tidbits of history during the drive, which I loved. Plus he had this thick Aussie accent that made me giggle every time a word came out of his mouth. He even talked about a platypus that he spotted at the lake at the caves "ages ago," which could mean he saw it yesterday or three years ago. Those Aussies and their darn language barrier. Rachel searched the waters for this native creature without any results.
Garth was the one that informed us that sometimes the fog is so thick in the mountains that you can't see Three Sisters. Yup, the whole reason we came to Katoomba was to take our picture in front of Three Sisters and it might not happen. Ah, the trials and errors of traveling.
We toured two caves and both were well worth the trip. The detailed beauty of 430 million years of formation can't be captured in the limited scope of my digital camera. That said it doesn't mean I didn't try to capture it with the majority of the photos showing up blurry because of my shaking hands on the night setting.
During the drive back to Katoomba, Garth stopped at a clearing where some roos were grazing. He feed them potato chips and encouraged us to do the same. All animals make me nervous, so I was gladly the official photographer for this experience. Colleen was the first in line to feed a "wild" kangaroo.
Overall it was one of the best tours of the trip, even with its high cost. And to think, I almost missed it because I didn't want to travel 75 additional kilometers.
The morale of this tale? Schedule more than a day and a half in the Blue Mountains National Park. There is more to see than Three Sisters.
No comments:
Post a Comment