Into the blue

Rachel and I left early Sunday morning for the Blue Mountains, a national park about two hours outside of Sydney. We signed up for a day tour through OzExperience and our first stop was Euroka Clearing to see wild Eastern Grey Kangaroos. Even though they are “wild” these kangaroos are very use to human visitors, so we were able to get quite close. Our guide told us a fun story about how they got their name, which I will now retell in dialogue form.

English settler (pointing to kangaroo): What is that?

Aboriginal: Kangaroo?

English settler: Kangaroo.

Aboriginal: Kangaroo?

English settler: Oh ok, cool.

The only problem is kangaroo means “what?” in abbie language. So really, the Aboriginal was asking him to repeat the question because he was confused. By the time they had figured out the misunderstanding the name had already stuck.

A momma roo teaching her baby boy how to box.

After the roo sighting, we moved onto Wentworth Falls where we went on a two- hour bushwalk. On this walk, we went through many different types of habitats including hanging swamps and a cool temperate rainforest. The waterfalls were breathtaking and the colors of the rocks and mountains were gorgeous. Later, we walked down about 600 steps through Jamison Valley, which lead to the famous rock formation the Three Sisters. There are many different stories as to how this came to be, some say that a father turned his daughters into stone to protect them from the advances of young men (that would be a nice magical power to have, huh Dad), but died before he could turn them back. From the bottom of the valley, we took the steepest railway in the world up to the gift shop and then headed to our hostel for the evening.

These designs were made by a moth's eggs.

There's just no way around it posing for pictures by myself is awkward... in front of Katoomba Falls.

The Witches Leap.

The Three Sisters: Elizabeth, Alison and Jackie.

About to ride on the steepest railway in the world... did I mention there weren't any seat belts either?

The following day was an even greater adventure: I went abseiling and canyoning for the first time. For those that aren’t familiar, abseiling is basically repelling: you start at the top of a cliff and work your way down. Canyoning is a combination of treading water, jumping into pools and abseiling down waterfalls. I was actually the only person signed up, so I had a nice one- on- one abseiling session with my guide Nathan. We started by going down a 15 ft rock and ended with an 100 ft cliff. Nate said I was a natural, in fact I felt so comfortable I stopped to take a few pictures mid air and even went repelled upside- down.

Child's play.

Getting to the big girl stuff.

After lunch, Nathan and I met up with another guide and two of his clients (a couple from California) to go canyoning; it was much more fun to experience this with other first timers. This is where it got tricky. The water was so freezing that I thought my feet were going to be blue by the end of it. We waded through shallow waters and did about three jumps and two slides (into pools of more freezing water) before we got to the grand finale: Empress Falls. Going down a 100 foot waterfall is more difficult than you’d expect! The wet slippery surface combined with the constant rush of water to my face made it difficult to maneuver, but I made it down in one piece. It was actually a bit embarrassing because there was a group of people watching me the entire time, but they were very nice and gave me a round of applause when I reached the bottom. I conquered the waterfall and it was awesome! Overall, it was the perfect first trip-- I can’t wait for the next one.

Nathan was a great guide, not the best photographer.

Yup, I went straight down that 100 foot waterfall. No big deal.