DAY TRIP: SEEING BLUE (MOUNTAINS) WEST OF SYDNEY

During my first-ever visit to Sydney, I took a last-minute day trip to the Blue Mountains near Katoomba because it was a rainy day in the city, I couldn't be bothered to spend it at the mall, and I was on an alcohol break, so Hunter Valley was out.... Plus, methinks a second day camped out on Bondi Beach, with the hopes of seeing Hugh Jackman jog by, would just be stalkerish, no? ;-)

I made the right, albeit unprepared choice. Right, because the 90-minute journey to the main destination was amazing. Unprepared, because I didn't realize it would involve almost half a day of hiking. Yep, leave it to this OC planner to forget to check the trip details!

We saw some kangaroos in the wild along the way. I frankly like to see animals in their own natural habitat vs. zoos, kept in steel cages. The ones I photographed were tame ones. Later on in the day, we would encounter two large male kangaroos - get this - BOXING! YES, BOXING. Our guide told us to stay away from them because they can close the distance between us and them pretty quickly; kangaroos can attain a maximum hopping speed of 70km/hour! Needless to say, we hightailed it out of there.

We also met some tame bikers at the quaint little town of Glenbrook, which was straight out of a storybook! I asked for a photo of them because their bikes were awesome! ... And also because they were the nearest thing to Sons of Anarchy (which I was obsessed with at that time) that I had seen in real life - even though they look too nice to be gang members. :)​

We finally arrived at the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Blue Mountains, and our guide - a very funny man named Smokey - took us on a guided bushwalk to see the famous Three Sisters. So yeah, I was a bit unprepared for this hike: not that the hike was challenging, I was just wearing the WRONG SHOES. And the wrong shorts (who wears dressy shorts to a hike?!). Anyway, despite the uncomfortable outfit, I was having fun taking in the scenery.

Our little group of adventurers consisted of a Polish cardiologist - who I told to help me in case I had an asthma attack while hiking, to which he responded with a laugh (probably thought I was so silly for coming unprepared), a photographer who is a dead-ringer for Ashton Kutcher, a pair of brothers exploring NSW together, and an Argentinian woman who beat lung cancer in 2012, operating with only 3/4 of her lungs, yet still managed to hike thru the Blue Mountains for hours and at that time, traveling the world with her hubby to give cancer the middle finger, proving that nothing is impossible! What an inspiring woman! Too bad I didn't get a photo of her - I remember her being so sprightly and happy - smiling the entire time during the trip, just happy that she got a second chance at life. Love it when traveling enables me to meet such interesting characters.​

We stopped for interesting tidbits on aboriginal drawings that can be found around Australia - some of them dating 22,000 years back. Some of them used the chalk-like rock dust of the Blue Mountains to paint cave walls and rock surfaces.

We took some breathtaking twists and turns, guided by the funniest and most interesting guide I have ever met in my travels, Smokey. He reminded me a lot of Steve Irwin, in love with the natural world and unafraid of anything. The trip was such a hoot because of him!

And kids, when the guide tells you NOT to poke your fingers into some random hole, please follow him. I almost did - until Smokey told me the hole on the ground was the home of the deadly funnel-web spider! Of course, this being Australia, the funnel-web is one of the most venomous spiders in New South Wales - its bite is potentially fatal if left untreated. The photo below is blurry because I was taking it with shaky hands, hehe.

Thoughts of deadly spiders were quickly forgotten when we saw Wentworth Walls Waterfalls from a distance. Nature is awesome, amirite?

Curiously, the sky around the mountains was tinged with blue: we found out from Smokey that Eucalyptus trees emit a substance, that when exposed to air, gives the space around it a bluish tint. Hence, the name Blue Mountain. :)

Then after a few hours of hiking, we found the pièce de résistance of the natural park: Three Sisters at Echo Point Katoomba. Legend has it that there were three sisters who lived in the Jamison Valley, named 'Meehni', 'Wimlah' and 'Gunnedoo.' They had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry.The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters, causing a major tribal battle. As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come .... Ancient legends have a way of elevating love stories into one epic narrative!

The great outdoors, punctuated with myths and legends, interesting sights along the way, and a beautiful, warm day made for a fun, active day trip out of cosmopolitan Sydney. If you want to take a breather from the brunch crowds of Surry Hills or the sunseekers of Bondi and Manly, strap on those hiking boots for a jaunt into the blue ... (mountains, that is).

HAPPY TRAVELS! x

HOW TO TAKE THESE DAY TRIPS:

BLUE MOUNTAINS via DownUnder Adventures Sydney. I can't find their website now, but there's a Trip Advisor review page for them, all raving about the amazing super guide, Smokey, who also conducted the tour I joined.

#Australia