Katoomba

Friday evening Tom and I met at central station to catch a train on the Blue Mountain line to Katoomba. When we got there it was foggy and rainy very much like Halifax. We checked in to the hotel, caught a bit of the royal wedding and headed out to find a place to eat. We picked a Thai restaurant, which was probably the easiest since most of the choices were Thai.

Day one the weather was still foggy and drizzly so we decided to check out the town first then see if it cleared up in the afternoon so we could film the valley and mountains at Echo Point.
This was our tea nook by the way. Totally my favourite part of the room, particularly because it had a little heater under the window which made it get very cosy. 

Just up the street was an art gallery. You'll have to try and imagine this horse at night emerging from the fog and rain as you walk down the street hoping that you're heading in the right direction of the hotel. Because that was my first encounter with it.

In the morning we discovered it had a friend. I think the dog was partially made out of tires.

I really enjoy this mural, there are definitely some good artists in Katoomba.

This one I at first took to be under the ocean, then I realized it would make waay more sense as the cliffs that the street ends at.  I'm just biased I suppose.

Some of the buildings. I noticed later that the brown one has Niagara on it and now I'm wishing I knew what was inside. I've been here so long I don't think the Canada connection even processed.

In an effort to get to the cliffs I led us in entirely wrong direction. Sort of. We went through a residential area that ended in cliffs, just not Echo Point or any sort of look out. We may also have been transported back to the 80's.

This road took us through a wooded area with houses and smells that really reminded me of Old Chelsea and Wakefield. It may have had something to do with the constant use of wood burning fireplaces.

 

I found some new bird life. These are red lorikeets. 

The hotel. We stopped by to drop stuff off and promptly were trapped by rain.

Lucky for us we had iphone games...

And warm tea.

It was time to go to Echo Point. When we started it was sunny and warm. Fifteen minutes later we arrived to this. There is a futuristic cartoon which in one episode the characters go to a look out at the end of the universe and it looked exactly like this. I loved that people still took pictures and stood there looking out as if they could see the view.

This is what they were looking at.

And it was this white.

Then a tiny spot in the cloud opened up and we saw some proof that there really were mountains. 

Note the visible up draft.

I was  hit with shyness when it came time to film but luckily it started to pour rain and everyone ran away. So I very happily talked to the camera. My main sightseeing goal was the Giant Stairway, after walking in a few circles we found the right entrance to the path.

The path of mist and rain. And racing groups, lots and lots of racing groups. There was some event going on and every 5 minutes groups of people panting would walk past us coming from the direction of the stairs.

The look out at the Giant Stairway was lower than Echo Point and offered a bit more of a view and some great sounds.

This is the start of the stairway and from what I understood thanks to the racers, it doesn't get any less steep. I picked my way down this flight (my feet were about 4 inches longer than the top of each stair), it was pretty crowded with the racers coming up and fairly wet so Tom and I decided not to attempt it any further.

We looked at souvenirs instead.

Katoomba overall didn't really have any large buildings, not more than 3 stories at least. They did how ever have lots of rows of massive trees and hedges. I really liked this one as you can see.

Tom and I got back totally exhausted and a little damp. One of my finds of the day was this ice wine. Well sort of, this one was made with manually frozen grapes. It was really nice though and an excellent way to prepare for dinner.

Which was pizza. One topped with duck and the other crocodile! It turns out crocodile looks exactly like chicken, but both Tom and I agree that it tastes like something that has spent most of it's life in water. There's a tiny fish-like flavour and the texture is very different from anything I've eaten before. Both were amazing. Tom's been asking for crocodile since, we haven't figured out if it would be sold at a butcher or a fish market.

The evening ended with a small sampling of our hotel's complimentary port and chocolate. Turns out I enjoy port. Who knew?!