The Blue Mountains

Sydney - Fri. Oct. 18 - Today we rented a car and had our first experience driving a car with the steering wheel on the right side, and driving on the left hand side of the road. The hardest thing to adjust to was the controls. The controls near the steering wheel for the windshield wipers and blinkers are reversed from our car in Pa. - the windshield wipers are on the left here, and the blinkers are on the right. It was very hard to get used to; just out of habit, without thinking, we would just hit the control on the left, and as a result, we kept signalling our intent to turn by turning on the windshield wipers. Side note: The people not only drive on the left side of the road here, they also walk on the left. Old habits are hard to break. It was hard to remember to shift left instead of right when facing oncoming walkers. Sometimes we'd forget and come face to face with a local. We rented a car to drive to the Blue Mountains, which are about 2 hours west of Sydney. When we picked up our rental car, we were informed that we might not be able to drive all the way there because of possible road closures due to local bush fires that are out of control. The local fires have been in the news a lot here, and there are many of them in the Sydney area. Fortunately we were able to drive all the way to Katoomba, which was our goal. Once in the mountains, we stopped at overlooks to see beautiful vistas of the mountains. The Blue Mountains are beautiful, and they are blue. The most impressive rock formation was the Three Sisters: three pillars that stood out because the surrounding rock had been eroded. They were an awesome sight! Here they just call them the Three Sisters, but I gave them names. I call them Rachel, Sarah, and Rebecca!

We went to a place called Scenic World. There we rode an incline train down to the valley floor. This is the steepest incline in the world - 52°. We happened to be in the first car in front. We looked down and could hardly believe how steep it was. I still can't believe I rode it anyway. If I had seen the track from down below, I don't think I would have gone. Anyway, we survived. Once at the bottom, we walked along a boardwalk among a lush Australian forest and saw some absolutely fascinating flora, including various varieties of Gum (Eucalyptus) trees. We took a cable car back up to the top and saw some beautiful views along the way. We then took a Skyway Cable car across the valley from one peak to the other side. The cable car had a glass bottom and seemed to glide above the tree tops on the valley floor.