Australia: Day 4 - The Blue Mountains

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I am really to miss my current early morning routine of waking up before everyone else and watching the city slowly wake up while doing my Bible reading and catching up on your blog. I also wish year I was still sleeping, but apparently that is not an option…

But yesterday I actually managed to see the sunrise. Usually it’s just a slow lightening up of the world, but an actual sunrise.

Once everyone was up, we got some breakfast and headed out of the train to the Blue Mountains. We brought Gabe’s homework because as much as he doesn’t want to think about it, he does have to do his school work. He did not get a lot done…

Once we got to Kootomba, we headed out and started exploring. Pat really wanted to hike down to the Three Sisters, which was actually terrifying. Josy did not appreciate it and told us all to make our “scared faces.”

It was cicada mating season and the noise was deafening. We were all almost getting headaches, it was so bad. Josy informed me that “the ugly loud bug’s noise is getting stuck in my head!!!” Yep, that sounds right.

At one point, I was lecturing Gabe to stop touching all of the things as he walked by. “There are bugs and spiders and…” And then I stepped on a snake.

We took a trail from the Three Sisters to Scenic World, where there was a tram over the valley and turn the steepest passenger railroad in the world. Josy actually refused to get on it, until the guys working there handed him a stuffed koala bear, which he named Snoopy. As point at he had Snoopy, he was okay.

Once we got to the bottom, we hiked through the jungle for awhile. They’d set up a bunch of dinosaurs (that Josy informed us were not real, they were robots, and the noise was coming out of speakers that looked like rocks sun holes in them!), so that was fun. I was trying to find a real koala bear, since the mountains were blue due to eucalyptus, but the only wildlife we saw was a lyre bird, which was pretty cool.

But the time we got out of the valley, it had started raining and it was windy and cold at the top, so I think we timed that right. And the rain did quiet down the cicadas!

We got the train back to the city, where both boys got a nice nap on the train (alright once again, very little homework was done…)

Then we got dinner and headed to bed because more adventures await…

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