Hello,
So it turns out I forgot to enter about my travels around Australia for the last 3 days of my trip. So here it goes. I packed my bags and said goodbye to the beautiful town of Newcastle which I had called home for the last 5 months. Its was sad to say goodbye to the place and to the friends I had made but it was good to know that in a few days I would be home. Over the next few days I traveled with my friend Marry to see the Olympic Park in Sydney and The Blue Mountains in Katoomba.
Getting from Newcastle to the Olympic park was a maze of trains but we made it by mid day. We walked through the main plaza found the stadium and signed up for a tour. It turned out we were the only ones that signed up so we had a nice little private tour of the stadium. It was really neat to see all the inner workings of the stadium. The stadium has gone through a lot of changes since the Olympics and looks very different. We got to see the press boxes, locker rooms, private boxes, and a lot more.
From here we hopped on a few more trains and headed into The Blue Mountains. We rolled into town around 9pm and were surprised at the near freezing temperatures. Luckily the front desk at the Hostel hadn't closed so we were still abel to get a room. I had stayed at a lot of hostels by this point but this was the biggest dorm I had slept in, it held 16 people. We got moved in, cooked some dinner, miggeled with other people and then it was off to bed. The next day started for us at 4:45am, we needed to get a jump on the day as I had to catch my 2:30pm flight out of Sydney which was still a 3 hour train ride away. It was pitch black, 30 degrees, and quarter inch of frost covered everything, armed with a map and a tinny flash light we took off into town to catch the sunrise over The Blue Mountains. We navigated through the zig zaging road and found a spot to duck into the woods to go check out the three sisters. (You can see the three sisters on the second picture below here)
I learned from my previous experiences hiking in Australia that giant spiders are a very real threat, especially in the dark, needless to say this time I was waving a stick in front of me like an angry blind man making sure no spider found my face. We ended up in a different spot than we intended but it had a beautiful view of the sunrise. It was a real treat watching the frozen valley come alive with the light; you couldn't hear another person or a car or anything, It was just you, nature, and a view to die for. It was the perfect way to spend my final morning in Australia. We took a quick hike around the rim, posed for a picture with the three sisters, and headed back to the hostel to catch the 9:30 train to the airport. My stay was very short in Katoomba but very much worth it.
It was weird to board the train knowing that my next final destination would be good ol' Elma, NY. The train ride went well and we arrived at Central Station in Sydney. From here I would go to the airport and Marry would go back to the house in Newcastle, so we said our goodbyes, promised wed all meet up again some days soon, and then went on our separate ways.
- Evan
