From: "Philip Merryman" <phil_merryman@hotmail.com>

Date: Wed Mar 06, 2002 09:40:42 AM Etc/GMT

Subject: Blue Mountains

Hi everyone,

At last I have found the time and an available terminal! The last few days (and the coming one or two for that matter) have all been a bit of a blur! However, I will do my best to fill you in on the Blue Mountains. However it is rather a long mail as aresult! I am currently in Sydney for my last night, so I'll update you on that later, its been in even more hectic visit here too!

The train to the Blue mountains from Sydney is part of the local commuter network, and takes about 2 hours to get to Katoomba. However this must be one of the most spectacular commuter trips in the world! Once out of the Sydney sprawl the railway climbs up into the Blue Mountains and there are spectacular tree lined gorges particularly in the later stages of the journey. The railway climbs to about 1000metres (3300ft) starting at almost sea level in Sydney. This was a particularly difficult line to build, but more of that later.

Katoomba is the main resort town in the locality. It is a small town with the air of a small English seaside town before it got over commercialised. Not that it has escaped though! The main street leading from the station is where most of the eateries and shops are and heads off towards where the sea would normally be. Some of the side streets are quiet and residential with bungalows and gardens. When you get to the "coast" you are at the top of some high cliffs (about 500 metres in places) and below you is a blue rolling sea of trees!! They really are blue! The trees give off a natural oil in fine vapour (normal living process) and this casts a feint but definitely noticable blue haze, caused by the vapour scattering the light (I won't bore you any more with the science!). This is how the mountains got the name.

Now in January the TV news was covered with the many forest fires around Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Well here there was not a cinder! The Blue Mountains covers a large area and the fires came nowhere near here. However, because of the news many people think that the whole area is burnt to a crisp and so stayed away, which has hit the local economy somewhat. I can assure you that in this area is alive and well and well worth the visit!!!

The focal piont of Katoomba is a rock formation known as "The Three Sisters" which are three stacks. The legend is that 3 aboriginal sisters wanted to marry three men from another tribe. It was not allowed to marry outside the tribe, but the three men concerned tried to take them anyway. Their father, the local witch doctor cast a spell to turn the girls to stone to prevent them from being taken while the men from the other tribe were fought off. The witch doctor intended to restore them afterwards but was killed in the fight, so could not undo the spell. However today you are asked that, if you do find the spell, to NOT use it as the Three Sisters are the central tourist attraction and it would ruin the economy if they became girls again!!

On the afternoon I got there the weather had been damp and cloudy. When I went for a look at the 3 Sisters the cloud was hanging just over the tops of the cliffs and drifting down into the valleys. It definitely had the look of a tropical rain forest!

To get down into the trees you have to descend what is known as "The Giant Staircase" which, depending on what source of information you read, has anything from 840 to 1000 steps. However, long ago there used to be coal mined from the bottom of the cliffs and so a very steep cable railway was built to bring the coal up (much easier that 1000 stairs!). The mines have long gone, but the railway is now used to move people up and down. At one point the grdaient is steeper than 50% and is the steepest railway in the world. However it is probably also one of the shortest as it only goes a few hundred metres down the cliff. As the train dives down the cliff through a short tunnel they play the theme to "Raiders of the Lost Ark!". A brand new cable car has also been built to do much the same journey, but with a better view and less excitement. Furthermore there is also a horizontal cable car which takes you over part of the "drop" and gives a spectacular view of the local waterfall. All three of these "rides" go from the same point.

The next day, in fact the next 3, were mostly clear, blue and hot. There are walks in the area which take you around the cliff tops and down the escarpment into the trees. The views from the top, overlooking the trees below and the other mountains around, are spectacular. I decided on both days that I would walk down and get the cable car back up. Lazy I know, but after the end of a long hot walk I did not fancy the slog back up! Day one was a shorter walk (a few km) around the cliff tops and down the Giant Staircase and then around the base of the cliffs to the cable car. Once down in the trees you are really cut off from the outside world as the cover is almost total, and most of the tourists stay up the top! You get glimpes of the mountains through the trees, but it is very much a jungle experience: dark and cool. However, just when you think it is quiet and you want to take a picture or film to record this fact is when groups of people appear, often talking, and then hang around in shot (I hate to say it, but they were Japanese!) but these minor interruptions aside, it was a very pleasant walk. The walk finishes just below the waterfall, and as there had been recent rain there was a reasonable amout of water falling. However this must only be a trickle compared to what it must be like in full speight. It drops all the way off the escarpment so falls a few hundred meters. It must be really something to see when it is really going. Back up in the cablecar, then a ride in the horizontal one for a better view of the falls. I was the only one on it!

On return to the Hostel I found that my new room mates were all Marathon Runners! There is an annual run along one of the forest tracks, out to a formation known as the Jenolan Caves. It is 46km (4km longer that a normal marathon) and usually takes hikers a day or two. These guys were going to run it! In hot and sometimes humid conditions, over rough ground!! The streets of Amsterdam where a much better prospect!!

Next day the runners were up and away early for the race (early start to avoid the heat). I had decided to walk to a rock formation visible across the valley known as the "Ruined Castle". There never was a castle there, but from a distance the rocks give that impression. The local info graded this walk as "hard" and abouth 12km for the return trip. To do this you go down a different stairway, the Golden Stairs" further around cliff, a couple of Kms out of town. Again I decided to use the cablecar back up. However the walk to the stairs is along a forest road which is driveable, so was easy. However to get back to the cablecar meant staying on the valley floor all around the headof the valley. But at least that meant not climbing the stairs. As it was hot I took about 3 litres of water and drinks with me. The stairs waer quite difficult and slippy in places, but I eventually got down. At the bottom a large tree had fallen across the path leading back to the cablecar, but I didn't need to worry about it until I came back. The walk out the "Ruined Caste" waas through the treesa nd undergrowth again. They are marked paths, so you don't get lost so long as you stay on them. A lot of the foliage here is quite ancient in orogin, so amongst the tree ferns and vines you definitely got a bit of a Jurassic Park feeling! About half way along some birds were making a ver distintcsingle note call, something between a whistle and a chime. They were localised to this place only and I could not see them. There were some samll brownish birds about, but the sound did not seem to come from them. Further on the sounds fades away and I reached the base of the "Ruined Castle". There was a sign saying "hard climb" and another that the path was badly worn. Neither were inaccurate! However, once up you only get to the base of the rocks themselves, but you still can't see above the trees. After a look around I came across another couple already up on the rocks, so they gave me some hints! Once up on the rocks and clear of the trees it reall was worth all the effort. You could see the escarpment and the 3 sisters in the distance, and you could also see up some of the other valleys as well! However it had been a strong walk and I had used up half of my water.

I had to get back for the last cablecar, so I only spent about half an hour on the rocks before coming down, giving me about 3 hours to get back. So far the walk had not been all that hard, or so it seemed to me anyway. The walk back to the stairs seemed much quicker as I knew where I was going this time. All the time you are in the trees you have no view of your route so you have no idea how far you still have to go. On the way back I tried again to find the birds, who were still in the same place calling, but again no luck. So far I had only seen one or two people on the walk as it is definitely not one for the casual tourist. Further on I caught a glimpse of some parrots amongst the trees ahead of me. So I stopped and got the video out in an attempt to film them. After a minute or so they began to get closer. Then from behind me I hear voices and heavy feet! Four walkers come tramping through together like elephants!! I tried to wait until they had passed, but immediately another party of about 10 then came the other way!!!! Here I am in the middle of the jungle all on my own about to film some birds and all of a sudden its Piccadilly Circus!!! However, unlike the parrot in that other well known circus, these were most definitely NOT dead (ceased to be , are no more....) and flew off!!! I never saw them again.

I got back to the stairs and the fallen tree without any further incident. In the end it was fairly easy to climb over the tree and the path from there on was straightforward. However I had to keep mind of the time if I was to get the cablecar. ButI still really didn't think that the walk had been all THAT hard. About another hour I got round the head of the valley and reached the landslide! Some decades before A huge part of the cliff had fallen away. Blocks the size of houses littered the hillside, plus every other size down to pebbles. This had swept away the trees and the original track with it! Now the track went over this massive jumble of rocks and out in the open sun. Now I know why they graded the walk as hard!! There were hundreds of metres of this to negotiate. It was hot, tiring and slow including constant ups and downs and scrambles. It was really slow going and I began to doubt I would reach the cablecar in time. I was really now facing the prospect of not only having to negotiate all this, but another staircase back up the cliff! I eventually got through the rocks, and just after through a lot of my water as that really was a difficult area to negotiate! But the path was back to being straightforward and under cover, so I pressed on. Eventually I came across a family with small children and wearing flip flops, so I knew that they had come down the cablecar! So it couldn't be far. In the end I made it, much relieved, with about 15 minutes (and about half a litre of water)to spare. Back up the top were a couple of beers with my name on!! Mind you I then still had a couple of Ks back to the hostel on the hilly streets! I got back absolutely knackered, and just a minute or so later so did one of the runners (the others had checked out). He had done the run in 5hs 15 or so. He too was suffering from the heat! He does the run each year and this was one of his worst ones! One of the others in the room had done it in just over 3 hours.

My last day in the Blue Mountains was set aside to again indulge my interest in steam trains. At the beginning I had said the the line from Sydney through the mountains had been a difficult one to build. However, when it reached the town of Lithgow (about half an our in todays trains further up the line from Katoomba) the buiders were faced with a 600 metre drop! So what they did was to make the line zig-zag down the hill. This means that the line goes down the hill as far as it can, then goes back the other way down another bit of the hill, and then finally back in the original direction to the bottom. This means that the train has to stop and go the other way each time. The original line was built in the mid 1800's and this zig zag was a very long and slow process to negotiate especially for heavy freight trains going towards Sydney having to go up. So in 1910, with better construction techniques and more powerful engines they built a new line to by pass the zig zag section.

It fell into disuse until the 1970s when a group of enthusiasts began to restore it. Now almost all of it is back in use as a tourist steam railway. The mainline trains stop at a tiny platform by request to let visitors off at the bottom end of the zig zag. However the main approach is by road at the top. When I arrived the first diesel train of the day had just come down, empty!! So they were pleased to see me, once again I was the only passenger!! I got talking to the young guard and the driver. I mentioned that I had used to work on the Talyllyn Railway in Wales as a teenager, so they immediately realised that I was inflicted with the same incurable disease of being a railway enthusiast. As a result I got a ride in the cab of the diesel railcar back up to the top. The steam train was going down and we passed it half way.

When we got the top. The driver said that he had spoken to the steam train crew and that I could go on the footplate! So back at the half way point I went across and got on the steam engine. This was no puff puff but a mainline job! The guys were great and said that I could ride with them at any time. So I went back up with them to the top. I rode in a carraige at the rear of the train back to half way to get some different pictures and then I got back in the engine. The crew then stopped it to let me off at a good view point for filming and left me there to film both trains going up and down. I eventually got the steam loco again back to the bottom. After a quick look around the engine shed I still had over an hour to wait for the train back to Katoomba. The diesel then came back to go into the sidings. I met the same driver and guard I had seen in the morning. The driver had to go home in my direction, so after he gave me a quick tour of the other bit of the line they hope to complete he gave me a lift all the way back! However, from talking to him I think that he is a bit more involved with running the railway than just being a driver! Hence I got all the special treatment.

In the end it was one of the best days of the whole trip yet! Riding on steam engines used to be small boy heaven whe I was a kid! I always thought growing up was over-rated! For fellow steam entusiasts, if you wish I will write a special zig-zag supplement with all the technical detail, but not today as it is nearly 9pm and I need to eat and pack!