The Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains are just a few hours from Sydney, so I take a day-tour.

The mountains are covered with eucalyptus trees (that I’ve been seeing throughout this trip).  They ‘sweat’ an oil in the early morning that creates a blue haze—hence the name of the mountains.

Acacia are abundant: they are the golden flowers, also called wattle, that I've noticed in much of Australia.  These are  fire-friendly plants --their seeds open only in the heat of a fire--that means they immediately help burned areas begin regrowth.

Acacia

Factoids gathered on the tour:

- There were no glaciers in this part of the world… except maybe in Tasmania.

- Australia is drifting north 3 inches a year.  

- The city of Leura is a pretty mountain village developed when the railroad came through in 1890...and dropped off  TB patients coming to recover in the sanitarium. 

Jamison Valley, possibly older than the Grand Canyon, is the second largest “enclosed” valley in the world. (The Grand Canyon is the largest.) The Jamison formed in a similar way to the Grand Canyon.    In the latter, the Colorado River combined with weathering to erode the softer rock, leaving a huge gash in the earth's surface.  In Australia,  Coxs River canyon system in the Blue Mountains did the same.  The river carved the rock, exposing layers of planet history.  Water filled rock crevices, froze and expanded, fracturing the rock, which broke off.  Several million (billion?) years of this left this impressive valley.

For jaw dropping, goose bump-inducing vistas, we stop off at Pearsons Lookout on the road into the valley.  The sense of horizontal 'stripes' in the rock each represent a different era over the rock's (and the planet's) history.

We go from Pearsons Lookout to the town of  Katoombah, Echo Point and the Three Sisters.

Image from

  www.worldholidaydestinations.com)

Katoomba (above),  the biggest town in the Blue Mountains,  is built on several hills. On one side, these hills plummet 600 meters into the Jamison Valley.   Katoombah means ‘coming together of many streams’--a logical name for a place where the melting waters of the mountain would form springs that unite to create a river.

Echo Point is the most popular lookout with its view across to the legendary Three Sisters--majestic pillars of sandstone that tower over the valley and are one of Australia's spectacular sights.

The Three Sisters (to be discussed further in next post)

We break from our coach travel to see a little of Katoomba, and our plan is to meet the coach at the bottom of a cliff.  Wait a minute... we're high up in the mountains....Huh?

Oh.... there is a railway that drops 250 meters--that's about 750 feet--at a 52 degree incline,  down the cliff wall to the bottom.   The is supposedly the world's steepest railway.  There are warnings as we board the railroad car.  Hold children, leave NOTHING loose on the seats, and hang on tight-- a 750 foot drop at 52 degrees is wicked steep.
Just for reference, this is a 52 degree incline:

 In my initial journal notes, I had some unrepeatable language to describe the descent.  And no photos.

If you're planning a visit to the Blue Mountains, I recommend the Skyway cable car which hangs over the abys.  It looks like a great way to view the valley from a unique perspective.  I didn't have the chance to do it, and I'm not sure it's suitable for people who have a fear of heights, but it looked pretty impressive to me.

Skyway Cable Car   (image from  www.miniworld.com.au)

We begin our return to the city through the Megalong Valley, which is separated from the Jamison by a narrow ridge of rock.

Megalong Valley (image from  www.dryridge.com.au)

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 Next: The Legend of the Three Sisters