Week 6 (not quite a full week,but ready to post!)

`` Hunter Valley Zoo to Blue Mountains

Thurs. Oct. 13 – singing “Pat-the-Wombat to the tune of “Rock-the-Casaba”

Finally patting the wombat.

We had breakfast, packed, and Skyped (telephoned via internet)a few people before we had to go. We couldn't leave the Hunter Valley without visiting the zoo we passed on our way to our runs, hoping it wouldn't be too grim. (after seeing a poster about the zoo where we could feed the kangas and pat wombats, I was eager to go! I was so excited I kept singing the above song (which wasn't more than “we're gonna pat-the-wombat” in the car until Owen threatened to cancel the zoo trip unless I stopped, ed.) An auspicious sign that this would be a good visit was the peacock proudly strutting its' stuff and flaring its' tail in the parking lot. We went in and Meg bought 4 ice cream cones full of kangaroo and bird food for the animals. We had a quick look around, were whistled at and told “hello, darling” by some cheeky cockatoos very interested in our food, and then headed over for scheduled wombat-petting. These are large burrowing animals which were given a nice plate of vegetables to eat, whole cobs of corn and heads of cauliflower. The male was shy but the female came out and ate and let the keeper pick her up and carry her around so that everyone could stroke her back. They have heavy bone-plates on their backside, apparently strong enough to crush a dingo's head against the top of a burrow hole.(The crowd around the wombats were us, some parents with their children, and some adults from a community living centre with their caregivers, we all waited our turn for what proved to be a rather anti-climactic experience, for me at least).

Meg, re-enacting her favourite scene from 'The Birds".

Next we went to Meg's favourite, the cage where you lock yourselves in with the birds and fed them. They soon were swarming over her and she spent a long time trying to train them how to eat properly. They were more interested in the ice cream-cones than the seed, and enjoyed crunching the bits up. I found them a bit much and dropped the cone when their munching got a little too close to my fingers. They landed on your arms, in your hair, wherever they could perch close to the beloved cone.

Getting close to an Australian icon, Russel Crowe!

We then got to pet a koala, (but only on the back and only while its mouth was full of eucalyptus leaves). Meg said its' fur felt curly and was surprised. We then fed some kangaroos, who again preferred the cone in spite of Meg's nutritional lectures. (We wondered whether all that sugar didn't make the animals hyperactive! ed) There were the usual suspects at the zoo as well- lizards, snakes, emus, dingos, sheep and goats (bo-o-ring). The Tasmanian Devil kept running around its small pen on the same route and seemed to be demented (or just in too small a space). Other than that they seemed pretty content and well cared for.

The wayward ways of pickpocket wallobies.

I managed to drag Meg away and we headed to Wyndham Estates for our final tasting. On our way there we passed a distressed turtle on the road. Meg ran out and picked it up to get it off the road and it promptly peed with fright. Some ladies inn a car passed and ave us advice as to what to do with it, and Meg got it to the other side. Not before a nasty driver honked at us for blocking the road, but the ladies gave him the finger. The ladies and meg congratulated themselves on having saved the turtle until we realised we didn't know which side of the road he had been heading for. No one was there but eventually a woman from the next room came and filled our glasses. She knew about the turtle situation and said they have a lot of turtle accidents in the vicinity. She was a French immigrant and her accent, mixed with Australian, was hard to decipher. She was overly generous and we really had to limit her pouring if we were going to do any driving at all. The wines that were local were excellent and it was the one place where the $60 aged Shiraz really was twice as good as the $30 one. We picked up some sparkling Shiraz and red port and then sat to have lunch and sober Meg up a bit (I can't drink wine before lunch like that). The grounds were being set up for an upcoming concert by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and there was much busy-ness happening.

Meg saves the world, one turtle at a time.

The drive to the Blue Mountains was long and pretty but was the twistiest road we had dealt with since New Zealand. Meg was only able to drive at low speed, pulling over to let the locals pass by. At least the weather was decent, and we pulled into Katoomba well before dark. We stayed at a hostel called No. 14, which was one of the nicest (our whole trip through the antipodes). It was an old house and felt like you were visiting a friend. The common room was cosy with a fire and everyone hung out there in the small place. Our room was located on the second floor, right under the roof gables and a very interesting shape, lots of triangles and lots of space (of course it wasn't en-suite, so we had to trip downstairs in the middle of the night, but we couldn't afford that luxury on our budget). The woman who ran it (Mandy) spent lots of time going over possible hikes with us and kindly gave us our choice of the rooms that were available.

We walked into town to shop and found that being in the hills meant the place got very cold very quickly, so we kept up a brisk pace to keep warm. We made dinner in the very crowded kitchen, dodging people as they went by and trying to keep the narrow walking spaces clear. The fridge and dry food areas were all numbered so that each room had equal space, but we had so much stuff we used the numbers of rooms that we knew were empty.

We ate in the common area and had interesting discussion with Aida, a Bosnian woman who was travelling for months and Kasia, who was a doctor from Adelaide (who had interned in Alice Springs and had good stories but was a total right-winger. Both were women travelling independently and were impressive, gutsy chicks, ed). We got lots of hiking and travel advice and then went to bed and slept well.

Fri. – Mastering the Mysterious, Misty Mountains...

Intrepid hiker in the misty canyon.

We got up and had breakfast with a friendly group of Germans. The weather was all fog and mist so we followed Mandy's advice and went to the Grand Canyon (as it would still be a good hike in mist). This one was slightly different from the Arizona one, but much more accessible from Katoomba (ha ha). The mist kept getting thicker as we drove to the trail-head and we were one of only a few cars in a lot meant to hold dozens. There was drizzle all around us, making the footing quite slippery. The steps were huge slabs of stone, occasionally carved out of rock-face but more often brought from elsewhere and set down. There was also a doorway which apparently was shut when they worked on the trail. We benefited greatly from their work (improving the trail) and soon descended to the bottom of the canyon. A stream met us there and would follow us for most of the trail. The hike was at the bottom of a gorge carved by this stream and had high sides and a very narrow hiking area. The trail took us along carved rock (with guard rails!) through a cave, under a waterfall but mainly through widened cave areas with a rock wall on one side and a crack in the ground with a stream at the bottom of it on the other. The rain came and went but never got too bad and the plant life was lush, amazing considering how many plants were just clinging precariously to wet rock. Towards the end of the hike we crossed the stream several times and had trouble finding the trail again. We only met one other hiker until our final ascent, so really felt on our own down there.

On our way up we met another couple wearing Tilley hats so we bonded and took each others' photos (yes, it may be lame but that's who we are). We then went by one of the crews working on the trail having their lunch. We talked to them about how they did it and found out that the huge bags of construction materials were dropped by helicopter for them. We finally came back to the starting point and took a side trail to check out a scenic lookout, which was like staring into a glass of milk due to the fog.

We rewarded ourselves by going to a pizza place that had a chef in the window but found that they weren't open for lunch. While walking back we bumped into three of the British guys with whom we had shared our Whitsunday Yacht trip. They were on a Blue Mountain tour bus waiting for pickup, quite a coincidence to bump into them again, what fun!(When you are on the road, people you spent two days with are like old friends if you meet them again).

Meg got a fantasy novel (Part 2 of a book that I read but didn't know had a sequel,yay!) from a used book store and we headed back for lunch at our hostel. Aida was sick and other people weren't feeling well, luckily we didn't pick anything up. She complained that she was going to Cairns, which is usually pretty sunny but had rain forecast for her trip there. She said bad weather had followed her throughout the country. It was true that the day after we met her was the first day on our Australia trip that we needed raincoats. Coincidence?

We also spoke to a Welsh guy (Brian)who had been travelling for a long time and had spent time in Cambodia helping to build a school. He was very laid back and seasoned and had spent most of his time in Australia tenting for free on public land. Some German hikers reported that you couldn't see anything on the trails in the town, so we hunkered down for an indoor afternoon of typing and napping (guess who did what).

Could we be deported for breaking this law? Please don't turn us in..

For dinner we went to the pizza place which was inexpensive and very generous with their toppings(anchovies and shrimp-yum). The crust was pretty average but overall the best pizza we'd had in Australia. They let us take our leftover pizza with us, which is against the law in Australia apparently because if people don't store the leftovers properly and contract botulism, they can sue the restaurant. We found that most places would bend the rules for us, thankfully.

We headed back and had a laid back evening comparing notes with the other people there and hanging out in the cosy common area. Hostels close to natural areas seemed to attract people of a different ilk than the cities, where many backpackers are of the “drink yourself blind and howl” type. Tea was had, work was done on the internet and we slept to the sound of pouring rain on the roof .    

Slippery stone steps stifle celebratory salute.