A Week In Oz - Katoomba!

Now this feels like a Graeme and Sarah holiday; ham and cheese sandwiches, biscuits and a train journey. Sydney was really loud and busy this morning and we felt a little under attack, enhanced no doubt by us feeling tired.

So it's quite a relief to be getting out of the city, at least for a while anyway, and head out to the mountains by train.

You can get a great deal of information about a place from the windows of a train carriage. Much more than guidebooks and websites can possibly impart. Glimpses into parts of lives and lifestyles that otherwise would've been beyond view; back yards, gardens, streets and shops. The corners of people's lives that are shared with family and the passengers on a passing train. A casual invitation to wonder what it must be like to live in that town, shop in other shoes, work in the offices and relax in the cafes and bars. Only train travel allows such polite intrusion. And all whilst munching on ham and cheese sandwiches.

The train journey from Sydeny to Katoomba, at least the urban part, was remarkable in its unremarkable-ness. It all looked familiar and strangely European. If I'd have fallen asleep and woken an hour into the journey I'd have sworn that I was somewhere in Northern Europe, undoubtedly remarking that it was tremendous value  for $8.80.

But it's a different story once the urban landscape gives way to the foothills and the train begins its slow pull upwards.  Slowly the formed, man-made environment gives way to bush. And my goodness there is a lot of it. Pretty soon bush dominates the landscape, punctuated with only the occasional glimpses of the state highway and small mountain towns. Miraculous really that within only two short hours of leaving the urban bustle of Sydney, we step off the train into the cool mountain air of Katoomba.....