Wednesday

Sunrise over Manly beach

These were taken around 5:45am from Mark & Heather's balcony. They
have the most beautiful view of Manly beach ad the water.

Riding to Jenolan...guard rails and kangaroos

We took a 2-hour train west from Sydney to a town called Katoomba, which is on the edge of the Blue Mountains. From there we took a tour bus (no public transportation out there) which took close to 90 minutes to get us to the Jenolan caves. We both thought the scenery on the way to Jenolan reminded us of Snohomish, but with more sheep.

One disturbing part of the ride was the "guardrails" on either side of the windy, narrow road that made up the last 30 mins or so of the ride. Apparently steel has not yet made it to Australia, or at least there isn't enough to use to safely contain giant tour buses that can barely navigate the corners should they slide down the steep embankment next to the road. Instead they've used only the highest quality 8-inch wide chain link fencing supported by 2 foot-tall wooden posts, which looked suspiciously rotten to us...a fact later confirmed by the broken, mushy post we found along the River Walk at the caves, far down below the road.



Highlight of the ride itself? On the way back on the tour bus to Katoomba we saw wild kangaroos! Yay!

Jenolan

We arrived in time to grab a traditional Aussie lunch (meat pie, "chips" (=French fries), peas, and brown gravy smothering it all.)

There is an underground river that flows out from the caves into the open just outside the Grand Arch structure that marks the opening of the caves. Where is pools up they call it The Blue Lake. The suspensed particles of limestone in the water give it a very vibrant bright blue color.

This is the most "nature-y" thing we've done in Australia so far. Neither of us was particularly excited with the huge amount of venomous animals in Australia, but we were extremely comforted to see the sign below on the River Trail. Note the line "The red-bellied black snake hibernates during winter. It is poisonous but rarely dangerous unless provoked." Rarely. Cool.

The Lucas Cave

There are several large cave areas at Jenolan. All tours are guided as there are many passageways inside and they don't want you either wandering off path or even touching the cave formations. We took a 2pm tour into the Lucas Cave that lasted 90 mins and included 940
stairs up and down!

There are barely words to describe some of the amazing formations we saw in the caves. There are tons of stalactites and stalagmites, huge caverns (there is one they call The Cathedral that is 54m high where they have cello concerts once a week), massive sheets of crystals growing on the walls, "curtains" rock, an underground river and more. It really was unlike anything either of us have ever seen.

Photo note: The lighting was very low in most of the caves, though they had accent lighting on many interesting cave structures, so you'll see two types of pictures. The ones that look grey/brown were photos where the light was too low to get a clear picture w/o a flash due to
the REALLY slow shutter speed needed. The photos where things look orange or red are pictures that look like the caves really looked. The shutter speed was still very slow, but I was able to hold still enough for long enough to get some good ones.

These are "curtains", places where the rock crystals have grown in ribbons just millimeters thick.

This may be my favorite. Check out how the curtains are so thin you can see light through them in some spots.

Tiny stalactites, and a little bat!

Evening

We ate another awesome restaurant, a French place called Sel et Poivre. Yum! It was Lynette's first time at a French place, and they did not disappoint. All the food we've had here in Sydney has been wonderful!

Cultural Note - Keep to the left

On the way to the caves today we kept passing street signs that said "Keep to the left except when overtaking," the Aussie equivalent of "Keep Right Except to Pass." We've noticed that this applies not just to cars.

Everything is done to the left here. If you're headed for an escalator, the one you need is on the left, not the right as in the US. Once on the escalator, everyone stands on the left edge so people who want to walk can pass you on the right. And, most frustratingly of all, people keep left when walking everywhere. You know how when you're walking and you're headed straight for someone you both move a little to the side so you can pass each other without colliding? Well, I can't tell you how many Aussies we've confounded by trying to dodge to the right, which of course puts us right in their path since they're headed left. Ack.