Summertime/Whitsunday

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Summertime; my new home for 3 days, and a pretty one too, if a little cosy. Our skipper was called cookie, from being a chef, Flo was the funny onboard German (you cannot escape them) and Shani might be the correct spelling for our cook’s name. Summertime was a lovely timber boat, with a Jacuzzi on the back, nice big sails that we only got to use on the last day and plenty of food. That’s right lots and lots of food. I did my best to get through all of it however even I don’t have the stomach space for 15 peoples meals.

So the 3 days went like this: head towards the islands, eat, check out Whitehaven beach, eat, sleep for a bit, eat, kayak and see turtles, eat, snorkel or dive the beautiful reef, eat, more snorkel, more eat, sleep, eat, snorkel, eat then sail back. All of this was naturally interspaced by snacks so I found it to be a lovely trip.

On the first night I fell asleep, lying on the deck, stargazing, it was peaceful and beautiful, according to Flo I snore exceedingly loud. The kayaking was awesome, I have kayaked many a time but never on such serene sea and with turtles popping up everywhere and the snorkelling was very pretty, I maxed out my camera almost instantaneously. I tried diving and typically, one of my water phobias I had forgotten and presumed dead, chose to wait until we had established I knew what I was doing in the water to then pop up and make me panic about the total ease and control at which I handled the dive. “Something must be wrong, warning, warning! He feels fine underwater, that means code red! Go go panic!” so my dive was cut short when I used up half my tank of air in about 5 seconds, a half hour dive might have been a problem. After this I just stuck to snorkelling and was fine.

Oh did I mention the food? We had wombat steaks and cakes and pies and fruit, not all made of wombat please note. Tea and biscuits pretty much whenever you weren’t in the water and then followed by the large meals, naturally always involving seconds, Shani knows how to cook, cute too, perfect woman! The crew were generally pretty awesome taking great care of us and entertaining us with their antics and funny music, showing us great times and cookie even refused to let me come back on the boat after my diving freak out, insisting I enjoy my time by snorkelling instead, which was just what I needed. Mind reader? Or maybe just sadist? On the last night we even played a game called crack racing! Where you had to transport a bottle cap from a starting line to a cup using only your buttocks. Girl’s vs. Boys, naturally the boys won, actually is that natural…?

I was sad to leave the lovely boat but also glad to be on dry land with space to walk or run if I felt the need, I stayed a couple of nights in Airlie recovering and hoping the swaying would stop then headed north once more this time to Townsville, or more accurately to magnetic island, this place was interesting.

A Bit Further North!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Back to Hervey Bay where I stayed a couple of nights just to get cleaned and sorted and then north towards the Whitsunday Adventure. Stopping only in Rockhampton.

Rockhampton………

Sleep

I woke up, saw the sun and thought ‘holy moly’ (not exact words) ‘its bright, that means it must be late, that means I must have missed my coach,’ I allowed my self one brief nanosecond of dispair before grabbing my phone and turning it on, waiting for it to boot up and tell me the bloody time was quite stressful, eventually the thing told me it was 6.43, my shuttle leaves at 6.45, perfect timing! I panic, ‘I cant make it! I’ll be late! Arghhhh!’ I also realise that my phone is very possibly slow as I have had that problem before.

I leapt out of bed grabbing my shorts and pulling them on all in (I’d like to say one smooth move here) several clumsy movements, looking like a teenage boy who just woke up with the girl with the super scary dad, who happens to be just outside. Instead of a crazed dad carrying an axe, I hopped out half naked to find the shuttle bus driver just walking out of a door to my left, I implored him to wait and naturally he said “No worries mate.” This is definitely the fastest packing I have ever done taking all of 6 seconds, then a further 9 to realise I had forgotten stuff in the fridge, sprint to the kitchen, retrieve and pack that as well. ‘Bugger, the bed sheets!’ Add 8 seconds. Walking to the bus took around 11, naturally I would run but it’s a little difficult with big bags that threaten to remove my arms with just a tad of jolting. I get the stuff in the bus and jump in the passenger seat, sitting down and realising that I managed to get up and pack then get to the bus in under a minute! All whilst talking to the Israeli in my room! Astounded by my speed and berating myself for not setting an alarm we headed to the greyhound. I was the first one on, after all that crazy stuff the bus waited around another 20 minutes whilst I swapped seats looking for the most comfortable one. Perhaps I don’t need to be organised, let luck do all the work whilst you lie in!

We left and the driver proceeded to play us more Pink songs than I knew existed, I think he was a fan. Airlie beach is great, no honestly it’s really interesting with lots to do and see and… ok I’m lying; its 1 street with 3 bars. Luckily I had nothing to do but sleep and get on a boat.

Fraser Island

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Fraser Island

To get a real flavour of Fraser Island you need to be there, crystal clear fresh water lakes, a beach almost 100kms long, friendly campfire dingo’s and an aboriginal to entertain us all. Watch the video. There’s also the tendency to hit your head every 3 seconds on the roof of the car, its that bumpy. My group contained a Scottish couple, 2 French girls, 3 Danes (1 man 2 girls) and 3 welsh girls, I was the only English one there. 11 of us in 1 4-wheel drive Toyota that really wasn’t designed for sand and a massive amount of sand to explore, what could go wrong? We got stuck on the first day, took a track next to our camp and ended up having to get out and push the car just to turn it around whilst a guy in a real sand vehicle drove around us. Angry and frustrated we retreated back to base.

3 days is enough to spend on a sand island but to see half of Fraser you’d need at least a week, and to be on speed. We explored a creek, found some Aussies who had set up their chairs in the creek and were enjoying some cold beers in cold chairs, genius. Then on to the shipwreck, its pretty damn cool, but still just another shipwreck, got some cool photos of it, broke the distance rule and then continued up to the camp. That night we had a Barbie and my god (Eatalottia, god of food) was there plenty of meat, reminded me of camping with my family in the new forest a tradition that is kept to every year, tons of food and then cricket! We didn’t have a cricket set on Fraser. After dinner some time the camp owner come out to play, an aboriginal with the Scottish name of Malcolm, he also has an aboriginal name but I have no idea how to spell it, I know it means ‘Thunder is coming’ which naturally I thought was awesome, everyone calls him smiley though so that’s what we stuck to. He played the didgeridoo, which is really called ‘Yigi yigi’ or various other names, and told us all about his culture.

Smiley mentioned the sunrise and that there was a nice little spot to watch it from behind his house, so in the morning I panicked thinking I had already missed it and rushed off down to the little perch at which I found smiley sitting there waiting still, I sat next to him and we talked about more personal things such as his family back home and he told me a little more about the way he lives, in the best of both worlds as he put it, having the freedom of living on Fraser and sharing his culture with us and then going back to the mainland to his wife and kids in their nice house and fancy car. The sun came up just after I got there so really my timing was perfect, and so was the sunrise, from our position we got to look over the beach and the sea, watching a couple chase each other and dance on the beach who looked like they thought no one was watching. The sun came up red, then slowly turned gold as it rose creating a line of gold on the sea and beach where it reflected, pure beauty. Also made me realise where the idea of a Yellow Brick Road came from. Later in the morning he took us on a bushwalk and explained the use of various plants then did a dance for us. Fascinating stuff.

On our schedule we had the champagne pools and had been told how wonderful they were. Indian head the start of our walking point was really cool, even though we melted, its basically a cliff and the dangerous part of that appealed immensely to me, so naturally I sat and took photos over the edge and hopped along the boulders to the farthest point and we watched the pair of dolphins, stingray and shark float around in the water nearby. All good fun then we headed off to the pools, 2 hours and 3 gallons of sweat later we got there, all to find something we looked at and thought, ‘hmm this cant be it must be round the corner.’ So sitting on the rocks and feeling utterly pissed off at such a huge anti-climax we sat by the 1 remaining pool with water in and ate our lunch, then read books and went back to the car. What a waste of a day on a paradise island. Our longest day over we headed back and made the most of it by having a contest in the car to see who could keep the most water in a full cup. Hilarity and wetness naturally ensued, what fun! This night I cooked, (I actually cooked the night before too) we had spaghetti bolognaise which was delicious, of course it was I made it! Vainly enjoying the delicious perfectly made dinner I helped myself to 3rds and sat round the campfire.

The company who sent us out and everyone we spoke to said don’t swim in the sea, there are tiger sharks and you’ll get dragged out and eaten. Well I can prove that’s rubbish as I didn’t get eaten, nor did the jellyfish they failed to mention sting me. Even though I swam several times. Smiley informed me it was rubbish too, apparently he even had a surfer come over with an aboriginal made board and try out the waves, then leave the board behind as a present to Smiley. So obviously it’s all scare tactics. Anyway the last day was when we went to lake McKenzie, the jewel of the island. We left late on the way there and almost had to drive through the sea which seeing as our car had trouble with sand we weren’t confident about. Luckily we just made it, and then we headed into the jungle again. The lake was gorgeous, and we swam in it for hours, splashing about and sunbathing, I too sunbathed but not intentionally, I fell asleep on the beach (the lake has a beach, white sand) and woke up sunburned and confused. The trip wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t get stuck at least 3 more times, so we proceeded to complete it on the way to the ferry worrying about being late but determined not to miss the really boggy patches. Crazy French Estelle was driving and we had a scream, literally.

The next City

Thursday, October 22, 2009

So what can I say of Brisbane, it is a city, it has a river, it has a YHA. What else you say? Umm buildings… sky… lots of flies. Ok I’ll be nice; the botanical gardens while being nowhere near Sydney’s are pretty and the banyan trees there are damn cool, it has a pleasant area next to the river with artful walkways and a nice lagoon and a few places to explore but I didn’t do much exploring nor did I stay long. However while I was there I encountered Jochen and Jana 2 people I had met before in the Blue Mountains. Jochen and I searched for a pub, and failed, for some reason the pubs in Brisbane are impossible to find, for us at least, even though we kept hearing about them. The bars we did find were all packed and extremely noisy when all we wanted was a quiet drink, we eventually went into one but ended up downing our drinks just to be free of the awful atmosphere. We tried to find another but to no avail, I was still feeling ill and thought I might just fall asleep in the road if we didn’t go back.

Next I headed to Hervey Bay to start my Fraser Island trip, I stayed the night at the colonial village YHA where I was greeted with a drink, some sweets and lots of smiles and laughter, reprimanded for cutting my hair in my video and even given my own private room! I had booked my Fraser Island trip for the next morning but I hadn’t realised because of the company I booked it with I would need to be at another hostel in the morning, stupid. Anyway it was booked and paid for, just be more organised than me and this wont happen. I didn’t mind that much though as I got on with the staff and was actually tempted to stay for a while longer just because its such a cool hostel, shame I had to leave at 6 in the morning.

A Stay With Gossamer

Sunday, October 18, 2009

I had arranged to stay with a friend for a couple of days and so I left Byron having only put my feet in the water, literally. Named Gossamer, she lives in Surfers paradise and welcomed me into her home. If when travelling you get the chance to stop at a friends DO IT! I can’t express how helpful it is to get out of hostels just for a couple of nights, staying at hostels is great for socialising and adventuring but every now and then you need a bit of space. This is exactly what I got, wonderful it was. While I was there she fed me tons of food, gave me some interesting insights into my soul, the meaning of life and showed me the lookout that looks over the Gold Coast, it’s quite a view. It was a bizarre experience; her house is small and cosy, crystals everywhere and a washing machine that threatens to tear down the house every cycle and I had my own room, which was wonderful, space and time to chill out and edit my film, which I hadn’t had before, in hostels it’s practically impossible. But we also started one of her sessions, which I wont go into in total detail as I don’t know a huge amount about it, I just know its like a psychic journey or something, tough to explain.

If you think this psychic kind of stuff is rubbish, feel free to go talk to a wall for all I care. The session was pretty powerful, not like a normal session (what’s a normal session anyway), it was like a huge energetic shift, so I went from being exhausted from all the people and places and madness, thinking I was getting a rest, to having a totally different type of ordeal whilst recovering from the first.

Yeah so I guess its pretty obvious I’m a fan of all this mumbo jumbo, some of my friends call it voodoo, some call it crap but hey what do I care, I do Shiatsu and Reiki so the odd soul journey is perfectly normal for me. Call me weird but I even like healthy eating, I know how crazy is that! All my friends naturally think I am severely unhinged due to my enjoyment of real food and wanting to keep my body relatively alive at such a young age, I mean surely I should wait until I have bowel cancer, gallstones and heart failure at least before I consider eating something that’s coloured green, what possible use could it be to start being healthy now! Ok so recently, on my mothers orders please note, I bought a big pot of powdered greens, perhaps going a little far maybe, but I don’t think so. The taste naturally isn’t quite caviar, almost as disgusting though, but it is remarkably useful for someone like me who can feel it if I have eaten too much greasy rubbish or only meat for the past few days, it’s like getting all your veg. in one shot.

So Gossamer took care of me for a few days and then sent me on my way feeling rested from my overwhelm of hostels and people, and overwhelmed at my new found bits of soul knowledge or whatever just happened. I headed up to Brisbane, or rather she drove me there, which was very sweet of her, and we managed to get lost in the crazy one-way system of Brisbane’s streets always having the hostel in sight just not being able to reach it!

Onwards, to Byron's Bay

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The next leg of the journey was considerably more painful, getting up earlier this time, around 5 and having to walk what I was told was a half hour walk to the bus coach carrying my backpack and bigger backpack which turned out to be an hour walk getting me there literally as the bus pulled up. After that it was just fairly bumpy, the road conditions in Australia do seem a little dismal, no offence to whoever looks after them but being used to English roads and being able to plan a world takeover in the back of a car or just sleep I was surprised by how difficult it was to type, on a laptop that seemed hell bent on flying all over the place! Using the loo became a very complicated procedure in such circumstances. Although I suppose Brighton has some worse roads but they aren’t 2000 miles long.

The journey consisted of boredom, a giant prawn and at Yamba a few people got on including one funny Swedish girl who complimented me on my iPod taste (beyonce and lion king soundtrack, not mine I swear!) and then proceeded to curl up against me and fall asleep, ‘strange’ I thought, ‘man she fell asleep fast!’ and eventually we got to byron bay where she woke up and also got off. I found out later she was staying in the same hostel as me, with an English guy who told me the Swedes were totally mental and all about Yamba and how cool it was, annoying the hell outta me as I didn’t have time to visit it before Byron, and I wanted to.

Byron bay, annoyingly, because I have a cold, is a surfing town! Meaning while here the options are surf, swim on the glorious beach, kayak with dolphins and party hard. I tried to swim, I really did, but its quite hard to when your body feels like crap and is imploring you not to! What I did manage was totally more exciting, I walked to the lighthouse dressed in the same gear I wore for the blue mountains, useful in cold mountains but not, I repeat not in the burning Australian sun! I needed this gear though as I wanted to complete my film and needed a couple of shots, which I eventually got after hours of walking around and seeing some spectacular views including a humpback breaching in the distance.

While in Byron I had the best burger of my life from a place called the corner shop, check it out its awesome, and also the best 2 sandwiches from the same place, which were equally godlike. I met an extremely cute Canadian girl and I really mean extremely, some really cool surfers who I almost thrashed at pool, and the guy who shared the honey at Coffs harbour, I forget his name which is really annoying as I’m sure it not hard to remember, anyway I was feeling pretty lame that night so he cooked for me, which was wonderful, being so tall he believes in big portions and I thoroughly approved of the many sausages, potatoes and broccoli (instead of salad, for me.)

Heading up the East Coast, First stop Coffs Harbour

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Waking up has never been a fun occasion for me, waking up at 5.30 on a Saturday didn’t make it any better. It was a dark day, literally; I looked out of the bus window and thought wow the moon looks bright, then I realised it was the sun I was staring directly at, somehow my eyes hadn’t disintegrated and that another dust storm had hit the east coast. It was nice to have someone I knew on my first greyhound journey and it passed with only a few tears (we watched seven pounds, one of the best films ever made) and we spied some interesting birds on the way. Eventually we ended up in Coffs Harbour where Lisa departed to god knows where and I was picked up by a very friendly YHA driver who took me to an equally friendly hostel.

Coffs I discovered is a pretty small and quiet place, I think it had a total of 3 pubs, for some reason I can’t fathom its referred to as a city. Here I met some very interesting characters including a guy from Bristol with a hilarious accent that I had to take several seconds just to process every time he said anything to me (much like Joey from Northern Ireland I met during my first week) which is bizarre as he’s from my country and only a few hours away. An American who played world of Warcraft until the cows came home (but Coffs has no cows), a German girl who got bounced around like a space hopper on speed and a very tall guy who gave me some honey for my lemon and ginger tea!

I should point out at this point that on my third day in Sydney I got ill, possibly to do with surfing in very cold water then drinking far too much straight after (not water obviously) but however it happened I still have the cold. Hence the lemon and ginger tea (Twinings of London which I was very pleased to find) and my joy at being offered some honey which improves the flavour so wonderfully! This is very frustrating for me as it makes swimming and all the wonderful activities one can do in water, which are quite abundant up the east coast quite unpleasant. So if I don’t mention my sea kayaking and surf experiences it’s because there wasn’t any. Anyway back to the story.

I went for a walk with Lisa along the beach, explored the local Sunday market (in a car park just like at home) and ate some kanga bangas (kangeroo sausages). The market was fun, got some very cheap fresh veg. the sausages were quite tasty although I couldn’t eat them all so I left the rest with the tall guy and the beach was extremely long, beautiful like Bondi but massive and we got lost in the woods at the end of it. As soon as we left the hostel I realised it was cold, however my bravado refused to let me go get warm (clever mechanism that) so I didn't go back in for a jumper, I'm still caught off guard by the short but extremely hot days, I guess the time to be about 4 and 10 minutes later the sun sets and I'm frozen! Confusing. The walk back almost had icicles hanging off my nose, ok i exaggerate but still. We got back to the hostel, I said goodbye to Lisa and watched several episodes of chuck before going to sleep.

My Last Night in Sydney

Thursday, October 8, 2009

I left the Blue Mountains eager to be back in Sydney where I could find Nora and annoyed that I would be leaving again the next morning, but hey my journey has to start, right! Seeing as Australia is a fairly large country I presumed I should get on with it rather than stay in Sydney for 3 months, somehow I think the blog might get boring. I got back to central and waited around for a minute as I had arranged to meet Lisa at 1, at least that’s the time I remember, I was there at one. Waiting bores me a lot so eventually I figured it must have been 2, I finished some errands and came back at 2, well 2.30 ish. No sign of Lisa so I got on with whatever I was doing. In retrospect it was silly to wait, naturally I didn’t see either of the girls until it was time to eat some dinner!

This time we made a joint meal of spaghetti bolognaise, it was pretty good but could have done with more time, which we neglected to give on our stomachs orders. Half way through eating Lisa tells me that she has family in Coffs Harbour (a place I had just taken off my list to visit) and is leaving on the same bus as me. “Oh” I say. “I just cancelled Coffs, should I change it back again?” “Yeah” she says and thus, with that fateful word, I embarked upon a nightmare of switching bus times and room locations which I thought would be easy but once started took a very long time and many complications to overcome; including the hostel computers dying, people changing the wrong thing and more.

After Lisa left I was alone with Nora, what to do…? I suggested we go on the roof and so we did, we stood up there for a while, my arms wrapped around her as we watched the moon and the city at night, eventually we got bored and went for a walk. We held hands as we drifted through the streets, walking in the direction of the harbour, amusing ourselves by taking photos of each other doing silly poses along the way and at one point even skipping (yes I am really 6 years old.) When we got to the opera house we found it lit up pink, and took some more photos. Then watched bats fly around the harbour bridge, lit up as they flew by the bridge lights beneath them, creating quite an interesting display, kind of like firefly’s from a great distance. More poses on the steps and then we just sat there for a while, long enough for Nora to almost fall asleep so I guessed it was time to call it a night. Right now typing this, I miss her.

The search for the ruined castle

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Up to date?!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Ok people so far i have been uploading blogs roughly a week after things happen, Ive been trying to keep it that way but I'm lagging, being on the road all the time changing hostels almost every other day leaves little time to write. So not being able to access what i have previously written due to having no wi-fi at my current location this will not be the next section of the story, which is about nora and then the start of the journey, but hey ya win some ya lose some. I thought instead id give a brief overview of whats happening and happened so far.

So right now this second I am sitting in Colonial village YHA an awesome little place which i recommend visiting, I have just eaten an elegantly shaped trough of chili con carne but somehow still feel hungry, god knows why. They were very surprised i even finished it and i feel like another. The place has a really nice family style air which is lovely, and due to my celebrity like status (for shaving my head in the video) I have been upgraded to a double room all to myself. pity nora isnt here....

Tomorrow really early I head out to Fraser island, should be awesome only im gonna have to get up extra early to make it due to mixing up the accomodation. Still Im glad I did as I really like it here, might come back after Fraser just to hang out for a few days.

So far I have spent a week and a half in sydney, then headed to the blue mountains for a couple of magical days, it really is incredible there everyone should go, nice hostel too (not just saying that to please them.) Then I went back to sydney for the night before heading up the east coast with Lisa; a friend of Nora (the beautiful german girl I met in Sydney) and then on to Byron Bay which has It's charm, awesome place but I couldn't swim due to being ill, so experience marred somewhat. After that I spent a couple of days with a friend who lives near surfers paradise, she looked after me cooking tons of food and took me up the lookout in surfers! My god what a view, if you only have a little money and time just do the lookout, Q1 its called.
Then on to brisbane which was insanely hot, had some pretty areas but I didnt see much while there. I left Brisbane this morning, now I am at the colonial village in hervey bay!

There will be no posts in the next few days; partially due to me being on a desert island...
however as soon as I am back in civilization I shall endeavor to have up the next part of the story in detail plus some Fraser Island Photos on Flickr.

Just so you know on the last post about the blue mountains, if you click the title it will link you to my first video of the blog so far. Check it out I'm rather proud:D

Ciao ciao readers

the search for ruined castle. blue mountains

Friday, October 2, 2009

The Blue Mountains

I woke up, wondered why someone had turned on an orange light and then closed my eyes again, a few minutes later I opened them and noticed no lights were on, but the room was orange. Wondering what alien race had invaded I went downstairs to make some breakfast. I got everything packed in the orange hue and checked out, somewhat puzzled. Someone told me it was a dust storm and I replied ‘oh really, I thought it was a Martian attack, splendid.’ Newly armed with the information that we had just had half the countries topsoil dropped on our heads I caught a train to Katoomba.

On the train I met an Australian, or ‘Tassie’ to be precise, apparently there is some rivalry. She told me about the miraculous train seats that could face either way and I proceeded to figure out exactly how this worked, figuring out leading me nowhere I sat down, soon as I did this a cold faced, no nonsense, but quite small business woman walked into the carriage and flipped several seats over to make room for herself. Feeling quite silly and also puny I had another go. Making it look a lot harder than the small lady I got the seat over and viola, I could face forward as well. The journey passed and we moved from orange city into slightly clearer countryside, which I think was only clearer because of the time passing not the location, I’m told everywhere was orange that morning. Gradually we made our way into the hazy blue of the mountains, they are called the Blue Mountains because if you look at them from a distance they are blue! Ahh the logic! I know I mentioned that already. They are blue for a reason though, which is all because of the eucalyptus that grow there, the oil from these lovely trees creates a blue haze which can be seen from afar, such as from Sydney.

While we journeyed through the mountains, I was wondering aloud (as I do often) how far Katoomba was, as getting lost was not on my agenda, I was answered by my newfound Tasmanian friend and a German guy at the same time, this same German also

happened to be getting off at Katoomba, and staying in the YHA there so we walked across the little mountain town together shivering like crazy, somehow without the sun shining Australia is really just a codename for Antarctica, and I did start to wonder perhaps if it wasn’t dust and really the Martians after all that caused this weird day! We were determined hikers however and after being plonked in the same room we decided to enjoy the fresh air.

Katoomba is a lovely little town, more of a village really. One supermarket covers everyone’s needs, if not then tough for them! It’s on the doorstep of the mountains, literally, 600 steps to reach some walks but still. Before our walk we had some lunch in the most

bizarre café I have ever seen, called the common ground café! I think the common ground they mention would be the Blue Mountains; they dressed in pyjama style trousers, wore jumpers and waistcoats, the men had beards and ponytails and the women just had ponytails. It was lit a yellow orangey colour, had a fireplace (great idea considering the current temperature) which we were nowhere near (not so great an idea considering the current temperature) and a cosy and awesome looking little upstairs area. Certainly the most interesting place id ever seen, the food was also interesting, hint: do not eat silverside, I figured seeing as I couldn’t see anything I liked on the menu I may as well experiment. Conclusion of experiment is: corned beef should be used only for display purposes much like my tin of spam. Never eaten! God knows why its called silverside as the actual ‘roast beef’ in the sandwich was actually silver, shining even! The corned beef was just pink.

On to the mountains, they are the important part in this post I figure. We left George (also in our room) after our lunch and headed into the wild windy cold mountains, I had to go back to the hostel and put on my thermals, as it was so cold, cleverly I had reckoned on not needing my jacket for my entire trip and this is still currently in storage in Sydney. We did the route called The Three Sisters, which goes under and around three, very tall sandstone rocks, there are various tales about the name, mostly involving a man turning his daughters to stone. It was cold and windy, but we climbed on rocks and enjoyed it all the same! After our long trek down the 600 steps aptly called the giants stairway we reached the path we would follow at the base of the cliff edges. The Blue Mountains are huge sandstone plateaus with deposits of iron and large sections of clay among them, the clay being washed away quickest forming the massive cliffs we explored, and the iron is clearly visible as veins all the way along it. Quite a spectacle.

The next day we ventured out on a longer route, this time George our American buddy joined us and we searched for Ruined Castle. George is a pilot we found out later, a man who wanted to be a pilot just for the sake of it and has some major knee problems but still walked faster than me the whole way there and back. Jochen is the German, proving that they weren’t just in Sydney, tall, bald and likes food and good beer. They helped me film and we wandered through the now sunny Blue Mountains enjoying the spectacular views and peaceful surroundings. Watching some of the eucalyptus turn silver at midday and still wondering at the cold ones we made our way to the castle that I was very disappointed to discover was actually just some old rocks…

On top of the old rocks which are definitely worth the walk to get to, we had a 360 degree view of the cliffs around us and it was by far the best (also scariest due to being on the precarious rock atop ruined castle) view that I have seen so far. Forget the Sydney bridge walk, just walk to ruined castle, sure it takes a few hours longer but it’s so much better and doesn’t cost almost $200 for half an hour. The walk back along the streets of Katoomba almost made my hands drop off with cold but we got some good food and beer in us later which warmed us as well as paving the way towards a very good sleep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL4pYwuFcCo

use this link to see my first video, or click the title of this post.