Blue Mountain Excursion Day 1!

It started Saturday morning. I got up early to leave at 8am. The showers were taken so I ate before I washed my hair. A minor inconvenience but I was worried I wouldn't get the chance before we left. And besides, who in their right mind gets up before 7:30am on a Saturday?! In the end, I was ready and off we went with the same tour company as before, but a different tour guide. But still as cool as the first!

The ride took like 2.5-3 hours there and I slept 90% of the time I reckon. I we all listened to our iPods while the driver cranked his own tunes up. Bernard went with, along with Angela, Jenny, Sonja, Cameron, and Doug (Aussie we live with), and me.

We stopped around 30-40 minutes away from where we live at a wildlife park. It was so AWESOME! We got to see many Aussie animals but the best were the wallabies and kangaroos of course. The way the "cages" were set up was so that it was just a fence but not a good one. They could walk right through if they wanted, so there ended up being a place where a ton of them just were chillin' around in the sun. They would lay around or lick each other's backs or entertain the people or chomp on the ice cream cones filled with kangaroo feed. I ended up taking 120 pictures just of them! And a bunch of other animals took up other pics...but after a couple hours there, we took off. We saw an echidna but it was just showing it's back. We saw a few koalas and I pet one and got a pic. I got to watch him get on a girl that worked there's back and get put away. They are so crazy looking! We also saw albino kangaroos, penguins, colorful birds, wombats, wallaroos (no idea what that is), dingos, and emus.

We drove to the Blue Mountains and went to the Jenolan Caves straight away after that. Driving in the area was crazy. Steep cliffs on each side with trees all around. I listened to the Jurassic Park theme on my iPod when I woke up, for effect. It worked. There was civilization eventually. We stopped for lunch and all had burgers. They put beets on their burgers. Bleh. I bit mine once and opted to take it off the burger. I had chips too (fries) with chicken powder on them, and a coke.

Then we had to get geared up to climb in the cave! We had to remove everything in our pockets. Cameron was the only one that brought his camera in and we passed it around, so I'll have pics of inside the cave later when he gets around to it. There was this other random kid around my age that also joined our tour. Talk about awkward. He was from New Zealand, a showoff, and pretty immature, but oh well. We all had to sign release forms in case we died or lost stuff in the cave. I was nervous! We were driven up to a place to get into our cave duds. We all put on overalls that covered our arms and legs. We put a bandana on over our hair. We got a belt around our waists. We got some straps that went around the thighs and waist. We put on helmets with lights attached. I regret not shaving before I came because my hair underneath my chin hurt so bad against the strap from the helmet. I was worried about my shoes since I forgot to pack my running shoes. I wore my main shoes and I guess we were going to get really dirty.

So we were lead by a short girl and old guy that worked at the cave place. We were driven up to the plug hole. We got clipped up and went one by one repelling down. It was so scary! It was especially scary for me since my shoes have HORRIBLE grips! I slipped at least 3 times. Luckily 2 ropes held by 2 people made me not fall (myself and the old guy). It was a short repelling down though. Then we unclipped and got a little more comfy without all the buckles.

Then down into the dark cave we went. They stopped us every now and then to tell us stories about explorers and how they used to do it. There are railings at some places. My hands got pretty dirty right away. We saw tree roots hanging down. That was cool. We had to shimmy through a tiny, tiny, tiny, hold early on. We had to shimmy through an S curve later on. It's called that because it's a cramped tunnel that is shaped like an S. Talk about contorting! We had to kneel at one point, put our feet behind us in a crack, and straighten ourselves out so we'd slide down this shaft on our bellies. At one part, they told us to turn our lights off. It was complete darkness unlike anything I've experienced. So peaceful. They told us to wave our hands in front of our faces and we did but couldn't see them. But the funny thing was...we could. Our brain told our eyes that something should be there, so we saw a shadow image and it was darker than the darkness. So strange! Two of the girls said they couldn't see it...weird. We also had to slide down (not on our butts because of the bumps possibly hitting our tailbones) on our sides and swoop around in another tunnel. We had to go under a short tunnel and out. We did lots of climbing up steep slopes, but no real wall climbing with our hands. Eventually we got to a lit area and cement steps. We walked down nicely and were told more stories. Then we saw other tourists not a part of the cave tour. They were just walking in the well lit and cemented tunnels. They got to see us with our dirty blue overalls and hardhats equipped with lights. It was hilarious! Then we got out to fresh air and I was so sweaty. It was hot out and I was in full overalls with a helmet. Finally we got out of those clothes and I still had pants on...but at least my shoes were fine. Barely got dirty and the grips were only bad during the repelling (actually called abseiling here). Whew.

After that we got our junk back from our pockets and left awkwardly while that other kid stood there staring at us. Then the tour guide that brought us there (not the cave people), drove us to a quick photo shot of the blue mountains. We got our pics and then continued on.

We got to Katoomba and found our hostel place. It was SOOOOOOOOOO NICE compared to the last place we stayed. Nicer than the hostel we live at normally too. In some respects. I got a full size bed because no one claimed it. I loved it. It was nice and spacious too. Cameron, Doug, and I got a room and NO strangers slept in the spare bed. The girls got the other room (Angela got the big bed in their room), and Bernard and the tour guide, Brett, got another room. I guess Bernard snored so loud so that Brett barely slept...

After settling, the tour guide said dinner would be ready at 7. We decided to walk around the hostel and explore outside in the town. We went down the street looking at the little shops and barely anything was open on a Saturday evening even though it wasn't even 7pm. We crossed the road and went up the other side to see the other shops. There was a super nice hotel palace looking thing. I got 2 pics of that, haha. Most of us were hungry by then. Dinner seemed so far away. I followed Doug, Sonja, and Angela into a tiny, quaint restaurant with mostly desserts and drinks. Doug got a hot chocolate, Sonja got something else, and I split some AMAZING blueberry cheesecake that was very soft, with Angela. Then we all walked the rest of the way back to the hostel to find them sitting with 4 Dominoes Pizzas for us and a couple of bottles of pop. We digged in and after that settled on watching The Talented Mr. Ripley in the theater room. It took us forever to figure out the remote and decide on a movie. Other random guys joined and watched with. The movie was meh. Not enough action or plot for me.

After that we all crashed at about 10:00-30 in order to be well rested for a 8am departure. I didn't sleep well because of what the sheets were made out of, but I did love how big the bed was.