A Week In Oz - Rain. Forest

Stepping into Katoomba is like stepping back in time, especially the walk from the quaint old station to the YHA. Other than an Aldi, which is a welcome addition from the choice of supermarkets in New Zealand, all of the shops and cafes are locally owned, independent establishments without a whiff of corporate contamination. Although this can result in an over reliance on one particular type of business, but on the whole it's for the better. But really, just how many coffee shops can one small town support? Or cake. Are a dozen or so cake shops really necessary? Just how much cake can one town eat. Certainly the locals don't look like they live on a diet that consists wholly of sweet baked products. But there are an awful lot of cake shops. It did give us a bit of a dillema when we first arrived as we lost nearly an hour to cake window shopping, carefully comparing and contrasting the offerings from around a dozen different retailers. It was exhausting work but the custard tart was reward enough.

But, as well as the retail approach, the other reason that Katoomba is a blast from the past is the forest. Sorry, Bush. Staring down from Echo Point into the vast expanse of forest, sorry Bush, I got the feeling that I was looking at a prehistoric landscape. Untouched, except for the cable car and train service that ferried people from the car park to the valley bottom. But apart from those modern intruders, the valley looked every bit like it had just come out of a Jurrasic Park movie. Seriously, I probably wouldn't have been at all surprised if I'd seen a T-Rex stomping around the valley or if I was buzzed by a Pterodactyl. Well maybe a little surprised, but the setting was perfect.

So perfect, in fact, that we just had to explore it. And so we set off around the ridge, following a well marked trail that would take us down into the valley bottom, around the base of the cliff face and then finally back up the steps to the Scenic World facility. It was so well marked, we were assured, that a map torn from the back of a free brochure  would be all we needed. The route was so well marked that even a child could follow it. 

We got lost coming coming out of the car park. How embarrassing. Mistaking a random track for the path we set off confidently and, after about a whole five minutes of walking, we emerged from the Bush back into the car park we had just left. After a hurried glance at the map we realised our mistake and set off once again, rather less assuredly, in the correct direction.

Blimey it doesn't half rain in the bush. The increasingly heavier rain added to the other worldly feeling and sense of not belonging in that environment. Trees stretched skyward, parakeets squawked and water ran down every available nook and cranny onto the dark forest floor. Only the occasional sign broke the spell of being way-back in time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and mobile phones were a figment in someone's imagination. The signs did, at least, serve a purpose and offered some useful advice about which plants to expect to see and notes on which animals could be encountered. As well as the usual collection of Tree Frogs, Bush Rats and Possums, four types of snakes could be encountered including the Death Adder. Now I'm no expert, and maybe they are perfectly pleasant creatures, but I have no real desire to meet a Death Adder. What does one do if confronted by a Death Adder? A-ha, thankfully the sign also gave some top advice on what to do in this situation; "If you encounter a snake on your walk it's probably best to leave it alone". Let's file that in the 'No shit Sherlock' category and move on.

Thankfully, or disappointingly, we didn't encounter any such wildlife and by the time we reached the steps back to the cliff top the total sighting was a resolute zero. No doubt the rain had put them off. But now to solve the real dilemma of the day. Should we take the transport back to the top or climb the 1000 steps back to civilisation? Surprisingly the transport option won by a ratio of 3:1. It must've been the rain as I'm sure in any other circumstances we'd all have happily forgo the pleasure of riding in a comfortable mechanised mode of transport and instead elected to sweat a little bit more and clamber under our own steam to the top. And just to demonstrate how easily this could be done, one member of the group took this option.

The rest were forced to spend $16 on the  ride back to the top on the worlds steepest railway, a decision made all the more easy by the promise of tea and cake at the top. In a choice between cake or pain, cake is always going to win. Unless the cake in question is Battenberg in which case I'd gladly climb any number of stairs in the pouring rain and jab needles in my arms whilst doing so in order to avoid that particular sugary delight.

The top was crowded once again with coach parties who seemed oblivious to the natural beauty that lay below and were more occupied with taking selfies on their mobile phones. Ah well, it's their loss. Such is modern life. To busy trying to capture to experience it. Maybe if a dinosaur wandered into sight they'd finally drop their phones. Maybe. Or maybe they'd try and get the T-Rex to pose in their photo. Hmmm.