I am taking a class called Outdoor Learning and at the start of the semester we were told we were going on one day hike and a weekend trip for 3 days and 2 nights. The first hike was to the Royal National Park and it was spectacular, so I had big expectations for this weekend because the Blue Mountains is supposed to be completely breathtaking. Well all I can say is the Blue Mountains not only reached my expectations, they completely went above and beyond! I am going to write this day by day cause there is so much...
Day 1: The Three Sisters, Federal Pass, and the Giant Stairway
Above is an image of the Three Sisters, a famous landmark seen on Australian advertisements. This was taken at the end of our first hike which was around 2 hours. We woke up early to get on the train to Katoomba at 8:20am where we all of our class met. The train ride was about 2 hours long, so we all fell asleep! Once we got to Katoomba our teacher was there to meet us and we got on a coach bus to the first hike. Before we left for the trip, in class we split up into 6 groups of around 6 people. There were 4 groups of girls and 2 groups of guys. Our group was 3 americans and 3 australians. It was Beth, Rachel and I all from miami, and then 3 aussies, Kellie, Whitney, and Jade. We were going to hike and live with our group for the 3 days. Turns out we chose well, our group was absolutely fantastic! When we got off the bus we went on the World Steepest Railway down to the beginning of the hike. This is a picture of us in the railway, it was very steep!
We started our hike and it was around 5 minutes between each group to make sure we didn't catch up with each other. It was so gorgeous and we all chatted and really enjoyed the walk. It was pretty steady but you had to watch your footing as is was up and down a lot. Here is a picture of our group on the hike on day 1!
Towards the end we heard about the Giant Staircase that we had to climb...the name described it perfectly. It was literally 1000 stairs that were a mixture be and tween steps made out of the side of the rock and some wooden steps. Needless to say, we needed a lot of breaks to catch our breath and it was intense but so cool climbing up the side of a mountain!
The views from the stairs were just gorgeous, and during all of our stops I took may pictures. You could just see for miles, I have never seen anything so breathtaking. It realy made the walk seem so much easier!
When we finally made it to the top, we were all very tired but felt so accomplished! From what started out as a cold morning, I was very happy to have worn layers and a t-shirt underneath because I ended up getting so hot the t-shirt was perfect! Here we are at the top of the stairs, all out of breath and tired
After the hike we had a short bus ride to the town where in our groups we went grocery shopping for the weekend. We had to cook all our own dinners and make lunches and breakfast, so it took us quite some time to get around the store, but we made a plan beforehand of what we wanted to cook (well what the other girls were going to cook as I have no idea how to work my way around a kitchen!). We got steak, chorizo, and chicken with salad and lots of other sides for the first night (everyone was making fun of us for how much meat we got, the said we must have killed about 10 animals!) For night 2 we got ingredients to make spaghetti bolognaise with mince and sauce. Cold cuts were for lunch or bread, and cereal and porridge for breakfast.
Once the shopping was done we all headed to our cabins which was another short bus ride away. They were located on a huge farm and there were 8 cabins in total, and we took up 7 of them. We were told we had to make a fire to heat up the cabins, so our challenge was to use one match . The aussies went straight to work, I helped collect wood, and we had a great fire going in no time, which our professor was extremely impressed with.
Well this soon turned...I got out of the shower as everyone else was napping, went to find a plug for my blowdryer, saw the wood on the top of the fireplace was smoking, 2 seconds later there were flames everywhere! I screamed and everyone woke up, we ran to the fire extinguisher as the flames were to the roof!! Next thing we know our teacher came bursting through the door to put out the fire with the extinguisher!
It was scary how quickly the fire started and the timing was good because it could have been a lot worse had I not seen it right when it started!
Interesting first evening to say the least!!
We all sat around the campfire that night all 40 of us and shared stories and things and it was lovely. Then all got in bed ready for day 2 of hiking, which we were told would be a grueling 5 hours!!
Day 2 coming soon..
