unday started out fine, but got worse rapidly, and by the end of breakfast, it was raining. We still jumped in the car and headed out to the Blue Mountains, to see the rock formation known as the Three Sisters.

When we arrived at the Three Sisters though, we could only see “Half A Sister” if we were lucky, due to the extreme fog. We took a few happy snaps off the lookout anyway, just for the heck of it, and to prove we were there. To be honest though, you’d never be able to tell even what country we were in, let alone whether we truly went to the Blue Mountains…*grin*

The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, ‘Meehni’, ‘Wimlah’ and Gunnedoo’ lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe. These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry.

The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters causing a major tribal battle. As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm.

While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come.

We drove a little further and came to the Scenic Railway, which is classified as the “world’s steepest railway” by the Guiness Book of Records. With a slope of 52 degrees, it is indeed a very steep ride, and more than a little disconcerting, despite how tame it looks in the photo… On another note, it was not until we got into the train that we realised that the roof was lower on one side than the other, indicated by Trav cracking his head on the cage above.

At the bottom of the ride, we walked around to a nearby waterfall, then back to the train for the ascent. The history of the railway is below, but we cannot figure out who would want to build a railway on that angle, and more to the point, how they managed to hang on while they were building it. It’s okay for us passengers in the train with the cage and laid-back seats, but the people building it would have to somehow stay holding onto the side of the mountain, and keep the building materials from falling…

The line was built in the 1880’s by John Britty North, founder of the Katoomba Coal Mine Co. for the purpose of hauling coal from the tunnel mouth to the cliff top and then to the railway for transport to Sydney. A tunnel was driven through the solid stone on an average incline of 45 degrees.

The first passengers to be carried on the railway were bushwalkers who came to the coal mine at the end of their walk from Leura Falls. They asked to be carried up on coal skies and the directors of the mining company, seeing demand for passenger travel increasing had a special passenger-carrying skip built, placing a charge of 6d. (5 cents) per ride. This special car was put on at weekends to cater for growing passenger traffic, called “The Mountain Devil'’, the little wooden car carried twelve passengers.

In 1945 the Colliery closed down and the Katoomba Scenic Railway Pty Ltd, the cartage contractors for the colliery, saw the tourist potential of this unique attraction and purchased the property which has been developed into the Skyway Complex.

We were about to head back to Sydney, but then changed our minds and drove to the Jenolan caves to see if there were any tours that we could get on. Due to a VERY slow car in front of us, and a winding road preventing overtaking, we were delayed to the point that by the time we arrived, there was insufficient time to go on one of the 90 minute tours and still make it back to Sydney that night for the flight. As a result, we wandered around the outside of the caves, and down the local river to see the hydroelectricity pumps from years gone by. All very interesting, but we were more than a little annoyed with the slow driver in front of us costing us the chance to go on a tour. One of the features of the area was the small lake created by the hydroelectricity dam, just in front of the Grand Arch near the caves. The water was simultaneously a vivid blue, as well as extremely clear. The colouration of the water is apparently due to the mineral content of the rocks it flows through before it enters the lake.

After driving back to Sydney, we ended up suffering from a delayed plane departure anyway, so it turned out we could have gone on a cave tour. Ah well. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, I guess. The bonus about being delayed was that we were at least not on the actual plane when it was sitting there. It arrived late from it’s destination, and so we were able to sit in the comfortable airport lounge and watch TV, rather than being trapped on the plane. A rather uneventful flight put us back in Melbourne, where it was much clearer weather than it was in Sydney.

A quick read through the trip indicates that we did not see the harbour bridge museum, or an opera house tour, or ride a ferry, got wet from rain, did not see the Three Sisters, or go into the Jenolan caves, on top of Di’s plane from Melbourne making bad noises, and the return trip was also delayed. Well, as much as it all sounds bad, it was still quite a good weekend and nowhere near as dismal as it would first appear. Everything was extremely relaxing, and it was pleasant to just take some time off from the pressures of watching grass grow. Yeah, I know, it sounds silly, but it can be quite stressful…

Categories: Travel, Sydney 1999
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Saturday morning, we headed into town, arriving at the Rocks at midday. With his camera having been recently nabbed by his parents on a trip to inland Australia, I had to purchase a one-use disposable camera, which accounts for the quality of some photos below. Not all the photos below are taken with the disposable camera - some are nabbed from tourist sites or postcards, because their photos show better detail of the places we visited.

After wandering around the market at the Rocks for some time, we decided to go see the sights and headed off to the Sydney Harbour Bridge to do the big “touristy” thing. We were aiming at the museum set in one of the supports of the bridge, but ended up standing 100 feet below it, with no way of getting up without going all the way back. We decided that we’d come back to it later rather than backtrack at that time. As it turned out, we never made it back to the museum, but we did see the bridge from up close anyway.

From the bridge, we went to the other most-photographed place in Sydney - the Opera House. Both Di and I have often heard that it is most impressive on the outside, and quite drab inside, but we never realised the accuracy of that comment until we visited. The inside is plain concrete, with no decorations, and the metal rods in the concrete are still visible for the world to see. Seems a real shame to spoil the grandeur of the outside by having it so raw and rough inside…

There were performances all afternoon, so we decided not to go on one, because instead of seeing inside four theatres, we’d only have seen the outside doors and been told to be quiet because there was a concert on inside. We went outside and found some bad street theatre - some form of interpretative dance about a prison, from which some prisoners escaped after one of them had a dream and when he woke up, there was a flag. All very odd, and completely confusing, so we headed off to find more mainstream entertainment.

Before we leave the topic of street-entertainers, I should just point out that there were some rather odd ones indeed. The first odd person we encountered was preceded by us hearing belly-dancing music. We could see someone dancing around about 50m ahead of us, but it was not until we got closer that we realised it was not a female belly-dancer clad in the appropriate garb, but in fact a 35-40yo male, fully clothed in T-shirt and jeans dancing around as though he was a belly dancer. Hmm…

Following that character, we kept walking and found someone dressed as a donkey with a couple of bells around it’s neck. The person was standing on all fours, which must have been pretty hard to maintain, but at least they looked more like a donkey than they would have if they’d stood on two feet. The whole act for this person consisted of shaking it’s head to make the bells ring. We figured that when someone donated some money, it would dance or something, but no. It just rang it’s bells a little harder for half a second then resumed it’s regular standing/ringing pattern. Pretty hard to stand in that position, and not much of an act, but still managed to rake in several dollars within the five minutes we watched.

Heading into the city, we climbed up Centrepoint Tower, which is the tallest structure in Sydney, affording a 360-degree panorama of the city and bay. Quite interesting, and better than the Rialto Towers in Melbourne, on the grounds that the telescopes in Sydney are free, compared to a $1 fee in Melbourne.

Our friend was off to a charity ball that evening, so Di and I were left to our own devices to find dinner. We jumped on the train to the next suburb - Parramatta - and went to a place called “Alexander’s” for dinner. No problems with giving them a plug, since the total bill came to just under $50 for two people eating three courses, plus drinks, to the point of being uncomfortably bloated.

After dinner, we strolled the streets of Parramatta a little, until we got scared of the gangs hanging about, and so scampered back to the relative safety of the train station, where we caught a ride home, and sat drinking (gee, we sound like alcoholics, don’t we?) until late.

Categories: Travel, Sydney 1999
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Through the fortunate placement of a conference in Sydney, I was able to use the air once more to travel north for a couple of days of learning about the research being conducted in the field, and the issues involved in the upcoming deregulation of the dairy industry. If anyone is interested, it was the 14th annual Dairy Research Symposium, and I was invited to present a poster and talk at it, hence my need to leave the fields for a few days. At the end of the conference, instead of flying straight back down to Melbourne, Di flew up to Sydney as well, and we spent the weekend at a friend’s place, exploring the city.

The following couple of days turned out to be a weird comedy of errors for one reason or another, despite the best-laid plans set out by our host, and us having read all the brochures on what we wanted to see. Life is odd sometimes, and needs to confuse you. This was a confusing weekend, which attempted to waylay us at every opportunity, through nobody’s fault.

Although my flight was rather uneventful, Di’s flight was more interesting, with all passengers boarding, only to be told that there was a small engineering problem they wanted to fix, and it should delay the plane only ten minutes. These “ten minutes more” announcements kept coming for the next hour, and the passengers were less than impressed. Finally, the plane was ready to head off, and taxied down the runway. As the plane left the ground though, there was suddenly a loud screaming noise, and everyone got somewhat worried as to whether or not they were going to make it.

Di was sitting beside a woman who looked out the window and saw the wispy clouds as the plane began to fly up through them, but mistaking them for something more sinister, cried out “SMOKE!” Needless to say, this did not reassure many people, but the woman was eventually calmed down, and the flight was relatively dull until the descent when the horrific metal-screaming sound returned. Nobody was entirely sure what the problem was, but the sounds coming from the engines were not pleasant. Nonetheless, over an hour after she was due to arrive, Di touched down alive and well.

We were picked up by Serren (our wonderful kind friend who was providing accomodation for us) at the airport, then cruised for dinner at a pub where you get to grill the meat yourself. After dinner, we went back to her place where we lamented the fact that alcohol does not assist much when attempting to solve crosswords.

Categories: Travel, Sydney 1999
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