Thanks to some friends who got me a voucher before I left, I was able to experience the Blue Mountains in a unique way (which the next few posts will be dedicated to).
In case you can’t tell from the pictures, I was quite excited to be given the chance to be a true blue tourist for those few days.
First stop – Scenic World.
VERY STEEP train ride down into the valley, Cable Car up, and forest walk (which I avoided because of the creatures buzzing around my ears, triggering my fight or flight instincts which was no fun at all).
Within the area of mountain in Scenic World, there were also monuments to remember the area’s history in the mining industry. Some of them were pretty creepy and depressing.
I wonder if more effort could have been made to remember the aboriginal tribes who lived here way before the miners came. The only time they were mentioned was when the cable car operator gave us a brief historical background, and they were only mentioned in a sentence.
It was an exceptionally hot day, so hot that bush fires started in the lower Blue Mountains. The trains had to be stopped, and we had to take a bus the rest of the way down. It was a chaotic, harrowing experience, but I’m sure it doesn’t compare to the people whose house and lives were threatened, and the firemen who fought the fires with their lives on the line.
Along Life's Path 