Blue Mountains and Blacktowns

Today I took the train for an hour to Blacktown. I got one person to donate and some guy gave me his business card (he spelt ‘password’ with one ‘s’) something to do with ‘Network Marketing’. I may send him an email so I can find out more about what the hell that means!

Google is useless on the subject.

Blacktown was what many would call 'a bit shit'. I was stood outside the mall with three colleagues and couldn't help feel it was not a great town, not because of the name or location but the people. There were mallrats hanging around outside for hours and guys with tattoos of dollar signs and the rat tail haircuts?! Seriously Blacktown, did you not get the memo?

Nobody will employ you with this hair'style'.

So I survived going to what may well be the Basildon of New South Wales, although my legs suffered as they did not have much chance to recover the massive trek along a massive section of the Blue Mountains. Partly because of the 900 step 'great staircase' and partly because I stayed up late chatting to people from various countries (including my first Spanish girl and Columbian guy).

So onto the Blue Mountains, which is not just some lame name to attract tourists, they literally look blue. It's quite amazing to look at in the real world, but my camera will have to do for those back in Blighty and I fear it doesn't quite capture the magic.

So my camera couldn't quite capture the magic, but I know it's there. We trekked along the top of one section of the mountains (to walk the entire footpath would take much longer than one day). There were four of us in all...

Pictured: 3 frogs and 1 roast beef (Jim, Marine, Me and Alex)

And we were all up for the challenge of walking quite a substantial distance along the higher ground then down to the valley below and ending with the dreaded staircase! If anything we were quite strong walkers,

So we actually enjoyed it. To venture down to the bottom was something that many would probably think pointless when there were mountains and waterfalls elsewhere, but the waterfalls have to go somewhere and there were a few other areas that were both interesting and kind of creepy...

Walking through the dense forest was great, and seeing the views from the various lookout points was astounding sometimes, especially as the sun moved across the sky and illuminated different areas of the cliff faces. The shades of green in the fauna mirrored the clouds as they rolled across the sky and really added life to the forest below, I didn't get tired of it, even at the end of the day when we had climbed those 900 steps, legs burning in agony, the view made everything seem worthwhile...

Of course the trains were dodgy (being a Sunday) and works on the line meant we needed to take a bus most of the way, which was a shame as that extra hour added to the journey to Katoomba would have been well spent at the mountains instead. I may choose to return and see a different part of the area, but for now I can say 'I've seen the Blue Mountains', which is something else to tick off my to-do list.

And my legs still haven't recovered. 

Note: There are more photos, I will add a slideshow of all of them at some point but I need to get Jim and Alex's SD cards first!