Three Sisters of the Blue Mountains

[2009_09_12]
Milestone post, this is my 100th blog post!

Today Sandy, Maxine and myself took a drive out of town to the Blue Mountains. A national park about an hour and a half out of Sydney. Once there we stopped at a overlook of Wentworth Falls. Australia hasn't had much rain so the waterfall wasn't as big as it would be otherwise but it was still very pretty. It was a large falls meaning it was tall, unfortunately my photos didn't turn out. Suffice to say it was very beautiful.

Soon we were off to grab some lunch before heading off on the day's trek. We stopped at a cafe sitting right at the edge of the blue mountains overlooking the vast valley. What a magnificent view! Its like looking into a forested Grand Canyon. Steep escarpments. It was a good lite lunch. Now we're off!

At the start of our journey, we got a ride down the escarpment, into the valley, via the worlds steepest incline railway. While waiting to board the train, we came across the fattest cockatoo I have ever seen! Back to the train, the loading ramp is at a decent angle. You'll note that even at a slope, the seats are titled back. That's because the track reaches a 52 degree angle as it goes down (that's more that 45 degrees!). It drops ~250 meters down into the valley. Quite a thrilling ride! What a way to enter the valley. It was originally used in 1879 as a way to bring coal up from the valley. As the coal depleted and tourists showed up, it became a passenger train. The current train runs along the same path as the original coal train did.


Here a few panoramas of the Blue Mountains, very magnificent!


Back on the valley floor, Here's where I saw the sign to our destination. That's right, the 'GIANT STAIRWAY'... It was a short hike, ~2km, to get to the stairway. Once there, whoa, it was quite the stair way! It was a mix of metal stairs precariously placed up a near sheer cliff along with steps carved out of the rock wall itself. It had a lot of twists and turns. It was very steep and sure got the heart pumping! It has ~1000 steps to the top ascending ~330 meters.


Ahh, we made it to the top! And what a view to have! (See top panoramo). Now we can see the Three Sisters, the three pinnacles. It was a fun trek, Thanks Sandy and Maxine!