Who makes my sister seem like “NO MAINTENANCE!” And I am not joking people. Those of us who know and love Katy, know she’s by far the most high maintenance of the four girls, however on our trip to the Blue Mountains, we met a girl (from LA), who opened my eyes to what high maintenance really is…
Our tale goes a little something like this…
Our driver Rob picked us up promptly at 7:30. It was us and another American couple from…can you guess? Close to Merry Hill, NC? Elizabeth City, NC. Kidd you you not! Turns out Fran is a wildlife biologist and her husband Tom is a pilot for the Coast Guard and they have two girls, who are ballerinas! They were very nice. We next moved to the Marriott to pick up newlyweds Logan and Kerry…a.k.a high maintenance. Kerry is a teacher (shout out to the teachers) but jobs are hard to come by out there so she’s currently a nanny (which must pay a boatload b/c they’ve done some extensive traveling and I don’t know how they’ve paid for it) b/c Logan just completed Pharmacy school two weeks before they got married, so we know he wasn’t making any money. Now they were very sweet, don’t get me wrong. They were nice and friendly and outgoing, and they promptly let us know they were honeymooners and had been married for a week. I can remember that feeling so it was fun to reminisce…shout out to Jill and Micheal who get to experience this themselves in April.
Moving along, within 20 minutes of the trip out of town, she busts out with her makeup case yet she had a full face of “going out” make up on. Who does that? It’s wet and rainy and icky outside. It was all I could do to put on foundation, bronzer and mascara! Notice I went with the hat and didn’t even bother to wash my hair b/c there was no point! Again….moving along.
Our first stop was at Featherdale Wildlife Park. These parks are really sanctuaries where injured animals, native animals, are nursed back to good health and live out the remainder of their days. Now here’s what was so fantastic about this place. We first pet a wombat (see photos of me and “Bubba Wombat”). Then we finally got to pet a koala! His name was Charlie and he was chillin, chompin on his eucalyptus branch, while the white girl and Hispanic (the only one on the island I’ve decided) pet him (see photos). Then we grabbed an ice cream cone full of kangaroo food and went to fed the kangaroos and I kidd you not… “Bubba Kangaroo” came right up, gently grabbed my wrist holding the cone (like my puppies do when they paw at me to get on the couch) and started to eat from my hand. It was incredible and so much fun! I’m so excited we stopped off at this place b/c it had been the best yet. Enjoy the photos and the video.
Now, it’s at this point, that we have high maintenance drama moment #2… on of the roos’ was feeling a bit randy and “LA” was holding an umbrella. Well, this one roo sorta followed us all around and at one point, wanted to play and so started hopping around her and the umbrella, and she totally freaked out… it’s at this point that her new husband ran off laughing his ass off and leaving his blushing bride to fend for herself…it’s at this point she starts screaming “help, get it away!” I looked at Zeus and said, “had she gone Caesar Milan on it’s ass, it probably would have backed off!” However, we can’t all be married to Caesar Milan, so her loss.
We continued throughout the park and finally got to see a Tasmanian Devil! I was so excited b/c we hadn’t seen one up until this point. He’s he little black critter in photos. We also saw a beautiful white peacock. I really wish he would have spread his feathers b/c he was so pretty, but I guess that would have required pissing him off and I wasn’t going to go there. Ohhh…I forgot to mention that while in the roo area, we saw a mamma with her joey…finally. Which reminded me, of the white wallabys you’ll see. The things sticking out from her belly, are her joeys legs. it was really funny to see. And an interesting fact about kangaroos, they can suspend the development of a joey is conditions in the wild are bad (such as drought). The longest a roo was pregnant was six years b/c she suspended development until she felt the conditions were right. Can you imagine!?
Moving along, we left there and started making our way to the mountains. Our first couple of stops were just really interesting places to look out and see the majestic mountains before us. Picture the Grand Canyons but with trees. Seriously. Anyway, while at one of our first points we learned that a man had recently thrown his wife and adopted daughter (she was from a previous marriage) over the mountains. Oh but don’t worry, they were dead well before he threw them over. He apparently told everyone they had gone abroad, but since he was stupid and running his mouth, someone investigated and tracked his cell phone and what he was saying didn’t add up to where his cell phone was putting him. Interestingly enough, he was busted when Dingos literally found the bodies and dragged them onto a trail where they were discovered recently… a month later. What kinda of psycho does that?!
Again….let us keep moving along. We had lunch at the Imperial Hotel, which had actual fires and it was very lovely. Lunch was ok…we learned through our American touring buddies, that we all dislike the food b/c it has no flavor. Anyway, we headed for the Blue Mountain park entrance officially and onto the cable car to take us down into the mountains. Now, prior to reaching the official entrance, we went to a lookout point and could hear the rushing sounds of a GINORMOUS waterfall. We couldn’t see it, but we heard it. Remember this, because I’m coming back to it it.
I need to again pause for high maintenance drama moment 3. We were joking (well half joking) about the leeches getting on us if we walked down the stairs (937 of them, which you know after the bridge climb we were NOT about to do), and opted to taking the cable car. Well, “LA” totally flipped out. People, it would have taken an act of God for a leech to shimmy up my pant leg and start sucking… it was not going to happen, yet her drama only fed our fun.
Anyway, we took the cable car down, hope you enjoy the video. It was a neat little 4 minute ride and then began our trek through the “rain forest”. Interesting fact- if and when you see photos of a GINORMOUS tree, you should know that this is the third largest tree in the world behind the red woods and sequoias of our national parks. It’s some kind of eucalyptus tree.
Moving along, we made our way around a small portion of the park, coming to the entrance of the old cole mine, now it’s at this point that I want to draw your attention to the photo of Zeus “drinking” water… now, remember that waterfall I mentioned? You’re looking at it. I swear, they said that’s the waterfall, makes no sense I know, but it’s the truth, and I only tell the truth in these emails.
In the following photos, you’ll see the “Three Sisters” in the background. Aboriginal legend has it (long story, short version) these three sisters were given the opportunity to learn what the men do and how to hunt. During their first lesson with their dad who was the tribe leader, they were watching their dad hunt, when he got distracted going after a lizard. Well, they started to play and were throwing rocks and sticks at each other and one went over the cliff (the rock, not the sister) and into the billabong (a large pool of water) and woke up the yettti like creature that they call something else, but it escapes me as I write this. Anyway, dad is deep in the forest and the yetti starts to attack and he hears their screams, and the yetti has them pinned against the cliff, so dad turned them into rocks to preserve their souls. Well, now this upset the yetti thing b/c he’s missed out on his meal of three women so he turns his attention to dad. Dad, pinned against the cliffs, turns himself into a bird, but looses the “bone” (not a wand) that he needs to do his magic, but barley escapes. Legend has it, he returned to find the bone, but the bone, and the yetti were gone, never to be seen again.
Anyway, after the old mining area, we had reached our railroad destination. It’s at this point I want to draw you attention to the laugh out loud sign by the world’s steepest railroad… it reads, and I don’t lie b/c you can read it for yourself…
CAUTION: This is the steepest funicular (what? that’s what I asked-and it was in italics on the sign) railway in the world! 52 degrees, 128% or 1 in 1.28 (this translates to steep as shit)
DO NOT leave valuables, infants, or cameras loose on the seat beside you as they can fall off and may be lost or damaged.
Now tell me you did not just laugh out loud when you put “infants” and “can fall off or be lost or damaged” together. We all about fell out reading that before we got on this thing. Well, needless to say, we can’t imagine what the ride was like down, b/c we only took it up and it was scary as poo poo (shout out Natalia). There were no seat belts or shoulder bar like at Disney and this little railroad hauled hiney up the mountain. Enjoy the photos…and remember…hold on to your infants people.
So, we made it to the top, where it was time to board the bus and head back. Our driver drove us to the ferry and we had our night harbour cruise so that was at least $125 per person saved. Upon arriving, we bid LA and her husband, Tom and Fran adieu and went in search of crappy food. I finally had some of those GINORMOUS prawns, a.k.a. shrimp, and this time Zeus has the fish and chips and another liquid dessert.
And speaking of which, you went and made a liquid dessert,right? Did you not just love it?! It’s our new fav drink. Plan for it at the wine tasting.
Have a great Monday America, and until tomorrow…enjoy the photos and video tomorrow…
Mandy & Zeus
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| The Blue Mountains |
