The day we lost the letter "s". - Sydney, Australia
Sydney, Australia
Where I stayed
City Hotel Enterprise, Sydney
What I did
Katoomba, Blue Mountains, Leura, Featherdale Wildlife Park
Today was the day that we were to visit the Blue Mountains via a tour we’d booked months ago. A couple of weeks ago, as bush fires raged out of control across much of New South Wales and parts of the Blue Mountains in particular, it looked like today wouldn’t happen as planned. As it is, the fires are almost all out and certainly under control, so the trip was on! The minor irritation was that we had to be at a meeting point round the corner from our hotel at 7am.
Despite the unreasonable hour, the streets of Sydney were already in full swing, with clean suited people walking purposefully with cardboard coffees-to-go in-hand. Our guide for the day, Trevor, was outside the entrance to The Grace Hotel waiting for us with a smile and a friendly sarcastic quip, sporting a bright yellow baseball cap with a kangaroo and “Australia” written across it. It was easy to like Trevor right away.
We were the first pick-up, so he bundled us into the minibus and off we went to the next pick-up. I’d decided that today was the day that I would wear my bright red ‘Them Scousers Again’ t-shirt with pride, bought in the Liverpool FC shop in Liverpool a few months back. How typical, then, that the next pick-up was a young couple, Naomi and John, from Manchester. Both Manchester United fans. Well, they would be, wouldn’t they. Some awkward banter then flowed and our final pick-up were two German couples. Naomi, John and I started to bond from that point.
The drive to the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba would take us around two hours, largely because of the appallingly heavy traffic in and around Sydney. Trevor took several opportunities to complain about it. It’s a major issue to the citizens of Sydney. Trevor was explaining that the New South Wales government was trying to get drivers to use the extensive train network, but so far with little success. Despite being, in his opinion, of high quality the general public complained about it to the point were the government appointed an Englishman to come in and sort things out. This Englshman, curiously, claims to have “solved” similar issues in the UK, which if correct make me wonder if the New South Welsh interviewed the blighter thoroughly enough.
Eventually, the traffic got thinner and we found ourselves getting faster and faster en route along the Great Western Highway bound for the Blue Mountains. This route took us through the small town of Springwood which just two weeks before was on the brink of almost certainly being consumed by the rapidly shifting bush fires until a change in fortunes saw them spared. What do you do when you’re faced with losing everything you have and have worked for, and there’s nothing you can do about it? Unfathomably disturbing.
As we got further away from Sydney the bus started making strange screeching, whistling noises – sometimes loader, sometimes quieter. We couldn’t put our finger on it but didn’t mention it to Trevor and hoped it wouldn’t get worse and ruin the trip by resulting in a breakdown.
With numb bums we arrived in Katoomba and drove a little further to the Blue Mountains tourist centre. Getting out of the bus we realised the source of the screeching noise. Throughout this whole area the local population of millions upon millions of Australian Cicadas were generating an ear-splitting noise. It was unlike anything we’d heard before. (You get a sense of it in the videos to follow.)
Here we took an exhilaratingly steep cable car ride down to the jungle on the valley floor (see video to follow), some 300 metres below the centre. Here the sound made by the cicadas was even more extreme and as we strolled around the constructed walkways we noticed that when we spoke to each other the sound effectively meant that we couldn’t hear anyone, even ourselves, say the letter “s”! It was completely robbed of us. We were saying “sausages” to each other, and “Mississippi”, which each sounded like “au-aga” and “mi-i-ippi”. It was the oddest thing, to be robbed of a letter like that. We then caught what is claimed to be the world’s steepest railway back to the top (see another video to follow). Then we took another cable car, this time horizontal, to dangle 300 metres above the valley bottom looking through a glass floor (yes, see yet another video to follow!) before being deposited on the other side to be greeted by a waiting Trevor, beaming from ear to ear and waving his yellow cap at us.
We went back to Katoomba for lunch and a stroll. We all went separate ways and during my stroll I found a cicada just sitting on the ground with wings spread out, so I picked him up in my hat and walked round with him for a while. Catherine had wanted to find one to take a picture of so I thought she’d appreciate my presenting her with one of her own. I carried this little fella (I say “little”, but he was a good 5 cm long) around with me for about twenty minutes. Several people saw me with it and stopped to ask about it or to take its (and my) picture. One such person was a Liverpool girl, now a resident of Canada and sporting a Canadian husband. We chatted about the old city for a little while and she insisted that her husband took several pictures of the two of us. If you can, I’d recommend walking around with a 5 cm long cicada in your hat. It really does break the ice.
Eventually, I found Catherine and started the cicada on a walk up my arm so she could take a picture. She erroneously grabbed a second or two of video instead before the wee fella decided that hanging around with humans was just silly and, stretching his wings, he was off on the breeze, no doubt looking for a tree in which to sit and sing his heart out. Bless him.
Next stop, the village of Leura (pronounced ‘Lay-aura’). A charming little place with more public toilets than was strictly necessary and a large array of surprisingly expensive and specialist shops along either side of its 100 metre long high street. Then it was back on the bus yet again to head to the Featherdale Wildlife Park at Blacktown to get up close and personal with some of Australia’s iconic creatures.
Featherdale is an odd but likable little place. Here you can stroke kangaroos, koalas and all manner of other creature, although they appear to draw the line when it comes to stroking the heavily fenced off dingo and crocodile. I was particularly disturbed to see an echidna performing the classic repetitive behaviour of an animal drive mad by unstimulating captivity. The staff of Featherdale do much to look after injured animals and to hand-rear the young of animals killed on the local highways, but there is always a downside to this sort of thing.
One more climb back onto the bus and Trevor takes us on a short tour of Sydney’s Olympic Village, now fully utilised by local businesses and showing evidence of expanded accommodation to move people out of the centre of crowded Sydney. From here, he takes us to our final drop off at the ferry stop of the Olympic Village to catch the ferry back into the centre of Sydney.
That was a full-on day, with lots to see and do and hear. Tomorrow will likely be less eventful, and deliberately so.
So, see you again tomorrow!