Katoomba

I love National Parks always and forever, and the Blue Mountain National Park was no exception. We embarked very early inorder to catch a train out of Sydney and to the smallish mountain town of Katoomba. We entered a privatized portion of the area via cable car, which was spectacular and continued into the valley using literally the world's steepest train track--as we left, the main theme from Indiana Jones played and everyone in the group mentioned an expectation of being chased by a rock.
The group split, and I chose to wander around a trail with signs describing coachwoods, early aussie mining, and so on. When the time came to meet up with the other group, I was not too keen on climbing a stair case that we had been warned would take an hour or more to mount, so I used a prepaid ticket to take a sky car (different from a cable car) back up to the top and meet everyone that way.

Unfortunately, because I am Samantha and I am prone to wandering without any real idea of where I'm going (though, be warned, I can come off as quite sure), I misinterpreted a map and took a two hour wandering in about the opposite direction of where I was meant to go. It was absolutely lovely, and I saw lizards for the first time in Australia as well as some neat birds, breathtaking views of the valley, and sweet waterfalls. After looping around and realizing what I had done, I set out in the right direction, where I saw even more exciting and wonderful things. However, at this point I had been separated from the group for the longest period of time, but for sleeping, since arriving at the airport in Chicago, and was starting to grow a bit lonely and concerned. By the time I reached the meeting point, I was exhausted and found a spot to rest and wait for a while--after about an hour an half I realized that they had probably come and gone and made my way back into town, and, worst case scenario would meet everyone at the train station. On the way, I found my first Dae Woo Lanos in Australia, as well as a cat that looked very much like my own.

After poking around in some lovely little bookstores, and eyeing up some shorts at The Cat Defence Shop--a charity shop, but I'm not quite sure what the charity was, I was startled by Dr. J running up behind me and shouting my name--the rest of the crew was in the pub I had just walked past, and hallelujah, I was found.

The train ride back to Sydney showed me three more Dae Woo Lanoses (Lanosi?) as well as four wild kangaroos--the only wild mammals I've seen in Australia. Unfortunately, they passed very quickly, and I was unable to get a shot, nor did any of my co-travelers see them.