Blue Mountains trip!

Quick recap of Saturday evening: A group of girls, Olivia, Laura, Mary, Heather, Ashley, Jessie, Ashley and I went to Four Pines Brewery across from the Manly Wharf. I had heard good things about their food and award winning beer (and we even had a coupon for a free beer) so we were really excited for another good dinner off campus. I ordered "Terri's pasta" pretty much in honor of my Aunt. The pasta was delicious with red sauce, sausage, and feta cheese, and it was really filling. I also tried their speciality cider which was very good as well :) After sitting around for a couple hours while sharing stories and laughs, we decided to get ice cream at McDonald's and walk along the beach for a nighttime photo shoot with Laura's camera. When done we walked along the Corso and beach to finish off the fun night.

Sunday: the Blue Mountains trip. A group of about 25 from ICMS went on the Blue Mountains trip. Our bus driver/tour guide picked us up at 8.15 and drove us through Sydney. We passed over not only the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but also the Anzec Bridge, also known as Madonna's Bra. Our first stop was Featherdale Wildlife park. After seeing wildlife a couple times in Cairns, I wasn't sure how exciting it would be, but as always the interesting animals made the visit worthwhile. When we got off of a bus one of the workers was holding a baby wallaby - sweetest little thing ever! We saw koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, dingos, wombats, and many different types of birds and reptiles. We saw bats as well - I'm not sure if I've mentioned this but bats fly over the city at night - kind of creepy to see when you aren't used to it!! Of course my favorite is the Little Penguins - Mike practically had to pull me away from their exhibit! But my favorite moment of the day was this little owl that was sitting by himself on a log. He was so cute and kept nodding his head at me! Adorable.




Our next stop was the village of Leura. Leura is located right outside of the Blue Mountains and really has that little town feel with a one street strip of small restaurants and shops. Most of us stopped at a little takeaway place for lunch. I ate the honey chicken with fried rice which made me crave sweet and sour chicken from home! We had time to walk along the shops for a little bit before getting back on the bus as well.



We arrived at the Three Sisters after lunch. This rock formation in the Blue Mountains has a few different legends behind it apparently. The original legend is that three sisters from the Katoomba tribe fell in love with three brothers of a different tribe. They wanted to marry, but their father, the chief, didn't allow it, so he had the witch doctor turn them into stone. The witch doctor died during a battle, and they couldn't find anyone to change the girls back. It's a nice legend, but those rocks are huge! No way were those rocks ever any ladies. The pictures cannot really describe how vast the area was.



After taking tons of pictures of the same rock formation, we went to Katoomba falls to walk down the mountain. We began at 1000 meters above sea level. The walk was pretty much all down manmade stairs, and at some points I was a little nervous to look below me! It was a beautiful walk though, and we could continuously see the Katoomba falls waterfall. Once at the bottom we learned about the mining that went on in the mountain area in the early 1900's. To get back up the mountain, we had to go on the world's steepest railway that used to carry coal up the mountain. Not only is it the steepest, but that train went pretty fast too! I was pretty nervous seeing as we were not strapped in at all, and it felt like a roller coaster which I am not very fond of.



After leaving Katoomba falls, we went to Wentworth falls. There were three original explorers of the Blue Mountains, and one of them was Wentworth. Lucky guy - got an awesome waterfall named after him! On our walk down to the lookout point at Wentworth falls, you could really look out through the trees and see the "Blue" Mountains. They are called the Blue Mountains not because they are blue, but because the Eucalyptus trees give off a blue vapor - so when you look through them out at the mountains they look blue in color!




Overall, I was incredibly glad I went to the Blue Mountains to learn more about Australia and see some beautiful sights! Now onto a hectic week with actual schoolwork... sometimes I forget that the word "study" is in "study abroad!" Whoops!!

Cheers :)