Olympics, Koalas, and the Three Sisters, Oh My!

Today was the trip that was included in our program fees. The day included a stop at Sydney Olympic Park, the Featherdale Wildlife Park, and the Blue Mountains (which included a stop at a lookout, a hike to the valley, and then a train ride up).

Olympic Park was really kind of interesting. We didn't get to see much, but it was still fun to see the major buildings of Olympic Park. Today, a lot of businesses have moved in, and many of the buildings are now used for concerts. I never knew that the Sydney Olympics were one of the most "green" Olympics. Not only was the site built on a landfill/swamp, but they also managed to decrease the endangerment of a species of frog! They built up swamps close by and moved the endangered frog there, and now it's doing quite well. Way to go, Australia! One of the cooler things we got to see at this site were poles that were put in place after the Olympics that contained the names of all the volunteers during the Olympics.

After Olympic Park, we headed over to the Featherdale Wildlife Park…after we had to go around a round about at least four or five times since we couldn't decided which way to take the 4 (highway out of Sydney). I was nearly car sick; thank god I threw some ginger chews in my bag before I left. Anyway, we finally arrived at the Featherdale Wildlife Park, got our passes, and entered into the park. And what do you know, we're already walking freely with some Wallabies!

At the wildlife park, we saw kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, penguins, Tasmanian devils, alligators, emus, storks, wombats, and dingoes…as well as many, many birds! We were only able to pet the koalas since it's illegal to hold them in New South Wales (the last time I was in Australia, we were able to hold them, but I was in Queensland, where it's still legal to hold them). However, we were able to hold some baby dingoes! Oh they were cute, and reminded me of puppies! They sure were adorable. When we were feeding the kangaroos (some…crap put into an ice cream cone), these darn emu kept coming up and stealing the cones from people and from kangaroos. They were pretty intense, and I took a video of it! The kangaroos were fun to feed though…they were pretty nice and comfortable around people.

After our trip to Featherdale, we took a drive up to Leura, a small little town on the way to the Blue Mountains. Yazi and I grabbed lunch at a place called The Red Door Café. It was really, really expensive (the entire town was), so I decided to just get a kids meal. It was just a piece of turkish bread with cheese on top. Twas quite good. I had a hot chocolate as well and goodness that was DELICIOUS!

We walked around the town for a bit and stumbled upon a candy store. Almost everything in the store is made in Australia. It was quite good, I ended up buying a few things of candy (they're already gone). Yazi and I were making our way back to the bus when we saw a teapot museum! I've never seen anything like this place before in my life. I think I only saw two or three teapots, but the rest of the shop was just random trinkets. I saw these river rocks that I had meant to buy back in the states, but they're about 10 times more expensive in the states!

After Leura, we finally headed to the Blue Mountains. We found out that the Blue Mountains are called the Blue Mountains because there is oil in the Eucalyptus trees (there are 900 species of Eucalyptus trees in the world, 90 of them are in the Blue Mountains). When the sun shines on the leaves and illuminates this oil, it gives off a blue tint. The Blue Mountains then perpetually have a blue tint. We stopped at a look out point to see the Three Sisters. There are many stories behind the Three Sisters, but essentially, it all just boils down to three rocks that are placed in the Blue Mountains.

After the look out point, we went on a hike down the mountain. We had a tour guide who stopped at a few places and told us different things of the Aboriginal settlements that were in the Blue Mountains. It was pretty informative, and we had a wonderful time. There were so, so many stairs on this hike though and they were terribly awkward stairs. They started really killing my knees by the end. There were places that the stairs were only 4" deep, were 8" tall, and there were about 20 of them all together - very, very steep declines! We stopped by a waterfall look out, and we sort of bypassed the railing to get closer to the waterfall. The rocks (that weren't wet) were covered in mud, and if any water from the waterfall happened to get onto your shoes, this made for a very slippery situation. Zara was pretty well freaking out (our CAPA leader) and kept yelling that our CAPA medical insurance wouldn't cover us if we fell! Only Yazi fell (typical her!), and everyone else just ended with amazing photos. It was a wonderful, wonderful view. The entire "Bush Walk" (as they call a hike in the mountains) was beautiful, but this was exceptionally beautiful.

After the hike down, of course, there's always the hike back up! Luckily, the coal miners had started giving rides up the mountain long ago, and someone decided to make a business out of it. This train ride was INTENSE! The incline was roughly 52 degrees, and the trip was an entire five minutes. There were no doors to the train, no seat belts, no nothing. The seats were tilted so that when you were going up the hill, you were sitting up, but when on a flat landing, you're leaning back quite a bit. It was an experience to remember. The photos really don't do it justice, and you can't quite gauge how vertical this incline felt, but trust me…it was like the reverse of a roller coaster in the middle of the mountains.

After this, we boarded the bus and took the two hour bus ride back to Sydney. Overall, a great day. A lot of memories, and a lot of photos! Adventures are so much more enjoyable when someone else is planning them...