Ruthie On The Road

We started Good Friday by getting up early and going off to the Blue Mountains.  We went up to the furthest point Govette’s Leap.  This was my first real view of the Blue Mountains as you can’t really see much from the road.  It was truly spectacular, you can’t really appreciate the scale of it until see it all.  Thousands of acres of red rock and tall trees set in massive valleys between the mountains and minuscule trails and tracks in and out of it.  We went to two viewing areas at Govette’s Leap and then had a picnic lunch.  From there we stopped at another lookout point before parking the car at Echo Point and the Three Sisters.  There were loads of people here and a lot of people walking the trails. We started at the viewing platform at Echo Point and then walked to the viewing area on the first of the three sisters before heading down the Giant Staircase. That was pretty scary in places and involved over 900 steps, some of which were more like ladder rungs than steps, down to the base of the iconic landmark.  I was really pleased we were walking down these and not up. That didn’t stop every bodies legs turning to jelly on the way down.

The path went up and down and back up again and I was wondering exactly why I had agreed to do this.  We walked the Federal pass round to the Katoomba railway.  We walked past waterfalls, viewing spots and fallen trees before arriving at the steepest railway in the world. It travels up at a 52 degree angle in places and follows a natural tunnel between the cliff faces.  Katherine decided to scream the whole way up because she was scared of falling out and I was sat there in amazement and listening to the Indiana Jones theme that they played on the way up.

Once we were back at the top we got ice creams and watched the cable car going up and down for a while before taking the Cliff Top Walk back to Echo Point and the Three Sisters viewing point.  The Three Sisters have huge significance with the Aboriginal people and are three of the original seven. There was an Aborigine at Echo Point playing the didgeridoo and selling boomerangs to the tourists .  I got a couple of really good photographs of him and then it was back to the car and everybody was pretty exhausted and starting to seize up.  Saturday was a rest day and with aching muscles we decided to go and watch Clash of the Titans at the cinema.  It was really good but didn’t have the same 3D appeal that Avatar had.

Sunday started with an Easter egg hunt for the kids and I got an Easter Bunny and then another trip to the Blue Mountains.  This time the destination was Wentworth Falls.  We went down the Valley of the Waters past a lot of waterfalls following the Wentworth falls pass on the explores route, headed around the cliff side to the actual Wentworth falls before ascending back to the top and the car.  I enjoyed this walk more than Friday’s because there was a lot more to see and the falls were definitely worth the walk, although, plenty of other people decided they weren’t when they saw the steps down to it.  It took a while to get back to the top but when we did we sat with a picnic in the park before journeying back to the house and my favourite, Thai green prawn curry.