The blue mountains trip!
Well, without informing my supervisor, I stole another holiday this week. My tally of leaves goes to 5, and leaves w/o informing Dianne goes to 2! I had this trip via the
Uni. International Student Services for a trip to the
Blue Mountains for a day @ 60$ pp.
Pretty cheap, and a quick way to add one more place to my list of visited places in Australia! The bad thing was that
I was required to get up by 0630 hrs and that was tough! Well, I managed to get through the tough test, and then made my way to the Uni. main gate by 0730 hrs. Was required to be there at 0745. So that was good! There, I happened to meet Thomas (he's a chap from
Tahiti, a group of Islands east of Australia) an exchange student. I had met him at
Julie's B'day. Felt good to know atleast someone on the trip. As soon as the clock hit 0745 hrs, our travel guide, Nicole, was there, and so was the rain! I thank God for the perfect timing!
After scrambling onto the bus, and having checked our names off the list, we (there were 36 students in total) started on our one day journey, to-and-fro from Sydney to
Katoomba. Soon, we were to realise that the traffic in Sydney is worse than that in Delhi, and we would have to shift the trip to the
Sydney Olympic Park from the morning to the last thing of the day! So, we made our way beyond the city of Sydney limits, and climbed into the winding roads of the Blue Mountains. It was now that we found that the DVD player on the coach was not working properly, and of the 6 DVDs on the bus, only Simpsons would play!!Watching Simpsons, we reached the
Featherdale Wildlife Park, where the best thing that I found was the ticket. At this park, with the ticket, one is provided with a 'passport', which is to be stamped near every animal enclosure! So, they give you a 'free' souvenir, other than the small koala that you are gifted!! Nice huh!! I felt the same thing! Other than that, you can get really close to the
koalas and the
kangaroos! After infinite fun with the Australian wildlife, and some great pictures of the birds,
we headed to our next destination, the village of Leura. A nice place, this was our lunch destination. Me and an indian guy, raghu (we both were the only vegies on the trip) had a vegie burger and some chips, and this was really cheap, as considered to the Kuranda village near Cairns! Then I managed to get some good pictures of the roads around the main circle of the village, and finally visited the "largest lolly shop" in the world. I did manage to by some chocolates for ecell juntax, so I really hope they'll be happy!
After lunch, we made our way to the
Echo Point, and
the 3 sisters lookout. I did manage to get some nice pictures of the valley from here. The most impressive thing were the regions where the sun beamed through the clouds. The valley here was green, and surrounding it was a pale blue shade!
After an hour here, we made our trip to the official final destination, the Katoomba Scenic Railway. This rail track happens to be the steepest railway in the world, with the maximum gradient being 52 degrees!! The best way to see the entire area is to walk down through the ever famous australian 'bushwalks' and then take the train back up! We, being the stupid tourists, (as all are!), followed our guide the same way. The only thing that was worth noticing was the single waterfall, (quite similar to the one at Kuranda, this too was a drip in the name of a fall!) and the different scenic views of the valley. After about an hour on the walk, we finally got on the train, that took us at the speed of 4m/s up the 178 metres! The worst part: this rail ride was $7!!! Other than that, it was fun!
Lastly, me made our way to the Sydney Olympic Park, just to see the
Telstra Dome (this the the only place where indoor cricket matches are held!!) and the mention of the names of all the 72,000 volunteers who worked for the Olympics!
Then we made our way back to the city, and I was back home by 1900 hrs. Not a bad day, finally, I managed to make myself some cheese sandwhiches, and slowly made my way back to bed.
Guess, thats all,
cya
aashish
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home