Yesterday I took the train from Sydney to Katoomba, the main town of the Blue Mountains. I came to OZ looking for natural beauty (that's what I decided on the plane anyway) and if this is only the beginning, I think I'll be having a great time here.

I had read about the Blue Mountains in the Let's Go Australia I "borrowed" from the hostel. I also "borrowed" a Lonely Planet on walking in Australia. To my own credit, I did leave two books, my LP Malaysia (ok it was crap) and a copy of Catch 22.

Anyway, I got here without a hitch, dumped my stuff in a hostel and went out for a walk. I visited the Three Sisters, which are the local icon of the outdoors. Everyone and their monkey stops by Echo Point to view them. It was a hazy day, but I did my best with the photos. (I'll have them up as soon as I find an internet cafe not run by computer nazis who have locks on their cd drives.)

I then got poured on, but I didn't let that distract me. It actually made the area quite peaceful and hearing the water on the leaves in a temperate rainforest was really soothing. As it let up, you hear the "drip drip" from leaf to leaf.

After the refreshing rain, I about faced and walked along the Prince ICantRememberHisName walkway. Along this route there were several extraordinary lookouts. Some were out on cliff edges that allowed you to look back into the cavern you just walked across while others looked out onto the canopy of the rainforest or into the distance. Finally, I started my walk back when I reached the Katoomba Cascades because I was thirsty and starving.

Today, after I switched to a better hostel, I started up exactly where I finished yesterday. I had the correct supplies (water/food) and could go for a longer "bushwalk" as they call hiking here. I don't know why it's called bushwalking because I am no where near a bush, nor do I want to walk on one.

This walk was even better than yesterday's. I got deeper into the rainforest and walked under huge overhangs of limestone and around hanging swamps. When I was alone in certain parts of the forest, I swear, you could hear the ground crawling. One of the highlights of my walk was a large number of wild yellow cockatoos. With their tall yellow head plumes, they soared like eagles. In fact, they were almost terrifying because they kept skreeching like wild animals because well, they ARE wild animals. I wished my brother Nick could have seen these beautiful birds in the wild, as well as some of the lizards that crossed my path.

I finally finished up by taking the Scenic Railway up the cliff. No one told me it was a 52 degree incline and when I saw how roller coaster like it was, I nearly had a heart attack.

This has been a great intro to the Aussie outdoors and I am looking forward to more. I will be re-editing this post with photos, so check back.