Travel ... 3

Just been reading Vicks Nicks blog. Which includes this beautiful excerpt about the Blue Mountains.

Our 3 day walking trip to the Blue Mountains between Christmas and New Year continued the stamina testing as we took off around the rolling mountains of the incredible local scenery - the walking also helping with the fitness as we climbed over 1000 ft amongst the blue/green haze of the eucalyptus trees. Here I saw some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen. We descended almost vertical rocky steps to the floor of the thick rain forrest below, the noise of birds and ciccadas almost deafening. The dense bright green canopy of the ferns and vegetation above was pierced by streams of dusty golden sunlight filtering through the leaves, the sound of rushing water close by from huge waterfalls emerging from high in the rocky canopy, tumbling over the rocks and throwing a spray of rainbow droplets above us.

Let me tell you about my experience of the Blue Mountains.

Get up stupid o clock Sydney time. Fight Tristan for the shower (not easy when he is in bleary early morning grizzly mode). Take a local bus at rush hour to get down town to Sydney Central, and find a train.
Discover at this point that the cash point won't give me any money. Why not? Because my bank finds Australia such an extraordinary place to go to that it has put a hold on all my cards. All of them. No switch, no visa, no mastercard. Running rapidly low on cash I smile at Nat in the hope she'll bail me out possibly indefinitely. Or at least until I can shout at some automated system running 12 hours behind.

So, ticket borrowed from Natalie's purse we take the 2 hour train out to the Blue Mountains. It comes to our attention at this point, that it is unquestionably raining. But not being faint hearted tourists, are we going to turn back. Never.

So we arrive at Katoomba. Described by the tourist website as charming, quaint, with points of cultural interest, it is clearly in fact, cheap, touristy, and overrun with souvenir shops. Anyway, I digress. We head immediately to the tourist information spot and tell the guy at the counter we want to go for a run. See I run Australia too. Enthusiastically he outlines a 10 k run, through the beautiful rain forest, taking in the sights etc. He then hands us a paper map. Did I mention it was raining?

Obviously I'm over prepared for rain, having been told that Australia at Christmas was likely to be cold, dreary, downpours of rains...

So I'm there in my running tights, tee-shirt and a woolly hoodie (and I don't mean snazzy merino woolly hoodie). I mean once dorothy perkins jumper. Hearing your man at the desk mumbling something quietly about leeches we set off. Jogging through the concrete town, towards the cliff face.

And we arrive at the start of the scenic part and we are definitely getting wet. Natalie (my erstwhile companion) is wearing a snazzy waterproof. I am considering jogging with my umbrella up. I reach this point later in the trip.

So the beginning of our run is in fact a metal stair case. Did I mention it was raining? So for metal stair case you can read neck breaking, ankle fracturing death trap. Running clearly not an option. So we walk, attempting to get down as quickly as possible, but in fact slipping and grabbing at handrails in a frantic manner.

As we get towards the bottom, I might add that I am not seeing "The dense bright green canopy of the ferns and vegetation above was pierced by streams of dusty golden sunlight filtering through the leaves" but I think it would be only fair to admit the "sound of rushing water close by from huge waterfalls emerging from high in the rocky canopy". Rushing water... you're not kidding. I'm worried we are going to be swept away and there is no sign of the rain letting up.

So cheerfully assuming we are now at the beginning of a beautiful 10k run through the floor of the forest we start off, and run probably all of about 2 k, before it is clear that what now faces us is another bloody metal stairway. At this one is directly vertical. Sod grabbing the handrails, I'm looking for the ropes and harness to get up the cliff face.

Scrabbling up the cliff face, we understood this is the section of the trip guaranteed to provide stunning views over the three sisters. Did we see it. Did we bollocks. Not a single sight to be seen, other than the increasingly bedraggled English tourists wearing clearly inappropriate wet weather gear trying to run up and down a mountain and not looking particularly cheerful about it.

As we stagger back towards town I am now so wet, there is no point holding an umbrella. And we decide heading home on the next available train is a good manoeuvre. At this point it becomes apparent that the man at the desk had in fact been mumbling about leeches. Now I'm not wild about girls being squeamish generally, I say get on with it, but there is a black slug like object fastened to my calf, getting bigger by the minute. And Natalie is struggling to get it off. Its attached at both ends. Double mouthed leeches. Only in Australia.

It becomes apparent as well, that it is not a socially appropriate to de-leech yourself on a public train. So we sit. With a definite tension, trying to figure out what number of leeches have wormed their way into our shoes. It does not look good, because there are four or five of them working their way out of our shoes and moving stealthily into the train carriage. Clearly this leaves us with two options. 1) responsibly announce to the passersby and fellow passengers that we are in fact carrying a blood sucking infestation, and it is on the move or 2) sit quietly, occasionally flicking leeches from ourselves down the carriage and planning our escape route... Hmmm.

Arriving back in Sydney we are still wet. Cold. Having our skin chewed by little blood suckers, and we now have to negotiate a train, and a bus before we get back to Tristan's house. Preferably arriving before he, or his lovely wife, get back from work and find us de-leeching in his bathroom. Its a close run thing. And he may have been confused finding the tub of kitchen salt in the bottom of his shower.

So, not quite the scenic charming rolling mountains scenes Miss Nicks appears to have enjoyed.
Ah well.

An ode to the Hill

Travel... Mark 2

I went to Australia

His home I found here?

A boat with his name on

A cargo of beer

And when he comes home
Worn out at the dock
He can have his full English
Right here at the Hog

But can you see the downside?

I just think I can

The obligatory, overpriced

quite scary Man Tan

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

So, I have been away for so long, that I will have to blog in sections in order to fully catch up on my own expeditions. Otherwise I will have to blog at length like Mr B-N, so this will be installment one.

Travel.

Apparently I've gone a long long way, to a big big place. And realised that actually long haul flights are not all that entertaining... so you have to keep your eyes open for good stories. People watching ... so here are the top entertainers from my journeys.

Coming in at number five, is the random man who sat next to me on a very long overnight train journey. As Tristan kindly pointed out, there are a million better ways to get between Sydney and Brisbane, but the train had been selected, and Tris had plans to cook a Turkey in a Weber, and I didn't want to be around to watch the fallout.... So I'm sitting, studiously listening to music and giving out my best don't talk to me vibes, when random aussie man starts to point out the local features we are going past. Now I might add at this juncture that I do not remove my headphones, or give any polite interested smiles and nods, but do we think that this discourages him? Not a jot. And the quality of the commentary is not good. "That's an island" - really mate? What gave it away, the fact it was totally surrounded by water. I'm not listening to you, but I'm not blind. "Those trees, they're Eucalypt you know", well knock me down with a telegraph pole. I've never been more fascinated. I had to run away from him at a station stop, and I kid yee not, the guy followed me out onto the platform chatting away and pointing out wildlife. Which was limited to things that may or may not be living underneath tin cans and old bricks if only we could see them. Worst kind of friendly freak.

At number four is definately all air hostesses on Cathay Pacific. Now my understanding of the air hostess role may admittedly be limited, but I had understood that there are certain key tasks which are required. And ladies, if you can't reach the over-head lockers, you are going to find your job a challenge. How may people does it take to put a case in an overhead locker. Final count was five. Would have got up to help but I was doubled over laughing at this point.

Number three may go down as an all time favourite travel story. So much so I may start to pass this off as my own. So I'm on a boat, sailing the fabulous Whitsundays, and chatting to one of my fellow travelling / holildaying types and he tells me about the best place he stayed in Thailand. He arrives, and his mate has booked them into a 'hotel'. (For hotel I think we can read total hovel on the wrong side of town). So going into their 'double room' they find a large rat, on their bed looking at them. Undeterred they do not leave the hotel. Hardened travellers, put up with rats not a problem. But they do ask the staff to cover up the hole that appears to lead from their bathroom wall straight to the local gutter. Piece of cardboard in hand, staff appear, and cover hole. 3am, undoubted scraping noise coming from inside bathroom. Rat (which in my mind and all future versions of this story roughly the size and weight of a jack russell), rat is trying to get into the bedroom. Presumably he's lonely. Rat has also chewed off all the cardboard and pulled the bathtowel into the gap. So far standard rat related Thailand story. Until I hear that when they got a member of staff to help, he pulled the bath towel out of the hole, and put it back on the towel rail, carefully smoothing down the wrinkles and making sure it lined up with the other one. Hmm. Bring your own towel. Always.

Second best travel moment, and it was a close run thing, is probably my late at night disorientation on the Greyhound. It is obligatory to have weirdly timed extended stops, usually about five minutes after you got on, and in a dirty cafe somewhere on the outskirts of town. This was no exception. So, I get out to meander around the cafe (I am an obediant traveller - they tell me its a stop, I get out and look at the sequined eye masks and deflated footballs for sale). Now, rule for getting off your coach in the arse end of nowhere? Perhaps to pay attention to where your coach parked?? So I come back out of the cafe, get onto the first Greyhound I see, and sit contently in my seat. For about five minutes. Before I notice the chap across the way is looking at me out of the corner of his eye. And to be fair, I don't remember having a chap sitting across the way before. And now I think about it I don't remember my coach looking quite like this...

But enough of that, by far and away my most amusing travel observation was the gentleman on the 13 hour flight to Hong Kong. Gets to seat, gets towel from his bag, sits in his chair and places towel over his head. Please note this is before the lights have been switched off. He goes straight to sleep, bolt upright and remains motionless until breakfast is served. I know, I got up several times to check.

Brilliancy. Will have to look out for similar oddities on the trip to Nepal... I might try the towel sleeping manoeuvre. Maybe he knows something we don't??