The Blue Mountains Through Kyle's Eyes

We have now reached the Blue Mountains after an hour drive from the Jenolan Caves which Mariah will be writing about later. We stayed in a town called Katoomba at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. Here we checked into a nice campground. At my first sight of the mountains I was kinda surprised because the mountains were like no other I had seen before. There was a large valley running through out the the bottom and then huge cliffs coming straight out of the ground reaching 1,500 feet tall. Then, at the top of the mountains there isn't a summit, there is a plateau. There was no snow on the mountains when we went, but we are going back in July, which will be winter, and they could be pretty snowy.
The day after we arrived in Katoomba we went to the Scenic World. At the Scenic World there are 4 main things to do. They is the skyway, railway, tramway, and a large boardwalk. The skyway is like a large gondola that goes from the top of one cliff to an another on the other side of a 1,700 foot deep valley. One of the main features of it was that the bottom of the sky way was made of glass. This made the sky way quite a thrill. Next, is the rail way. This is the steepest rail way in the world. It averaged a 52 degree downward slope. It went right over the cliff side going through a cave on the way. This was just as much as a thrill as the sky way. Last, is the tramway. This was much like the skyway but instead of going over the valley it went down to the bottom of the valley. This averaged a slope just as steep as the slope of the train did, but we were dangling in the air. It started on a plateau on top and dropped over the edge into the valley 1,500 feet below. At the bottom of the valley there was a nice boardwalk. It went by the old mining caves and some tools. About a hundred years ago they mined coal there. When we were done with the Scenic World we went on to do some hikes in the area. We hiked to the 3 sisters. The 3 sisters are 3 very famous rock formations standing just next to each other. There is a long Australian legend that goes on to say, basically, that 3 aboriginal sisters were turned to stone by a witch doctor to be protected from another tribe at battle. Unfortunately the witch doctor was killed in the battle and the sisters had no way of being turned back to their human selves. In the picture you may be able to see a smaller rock formation. This is said to be the witch doctor.
The next day We took a hike that was about 6 kilometers. It turned out to be one of my favorite hikes I have ever done. The hike started at the top of one of the cliffs and ended at the bottom at a huge beautiful water fall. Stairs had been cut out of the rock in the cliffs to form the trail. In the picture with just Jake on the trail you can really see how you're on the cliff edge. Luckily there was a great handrail along most of the trail.
At the mountains there was heaps and heaps of huge cockatoos. They were everywhere. The picture of the white bird is a cockatoo. The picture taken was not zoomed in. The birds got very close to the people.

There is also A picture of hands in a cave. These hands were from Aboriginal people. Some of the hands dating back to 40,000 years old. Each hand was from a different generation
Thank you for reading my blog entry. If you have anything to say or any questions you can either email my at ksteen93@yahoo.com or post a comment on the blog.

~kyle