Again, honey, you've forsaken me
It's always in the stormy nights that you go looking for loose kites...
I play, play, play and sing while driving Rowena Wise's songs, again and again...
And look, there's a video for the song shot at Woodford! Makes me miss it already. And it's only March now :D
I'm in the Blue Mountains! As you know. Well, the festival was over and it was definitely time to go out and take a much closer look at this gorgeous piece of nature - a World Heritage Site.
From Yona, a fellow volunteer at Wanderlust Festival, I had heard that Perrys Lookdown was a very nice spot. So I drove there, very slowly over a dirt road where kangaroos where sitting, eyeing Laurie approaching and then bouncing off into the shrub.
I found the place in the middle of bush and right on the edge of a high cliff, going down some 600m into the Grose Valley. My plan was to climb down a big stairway, walk to the Blue Gum Forest in the valley and then climb up again. It was rated as a hard walk, taking about 5 hours of which 3 should be allowed for climbing back up. But my knee has been fine for a long time and I am absolutely STOKED about the fact that I can do physically challenging things like this again!
So, I knew it was gonna be hard, but I was looking for the challenge and ready to push to my limits.
But, as things go, I never did that walk. For right next to me were 2 Swedish couples camping, and they spontaneously invited me to sit and share dinner and a chat with them. Marielle, Anton, Timmy and Michelle. We had a really good conversation and right from the start I had the feeling to be among like-minded traveller friends. And the next morning, Anton and Marielle invited me to come and join them on their hike for the day, which was a 3 hour medium walk to Pulpit Rock and back.
The choice wasn't hard. Social contact - oh yeah, too tempting!
And the walk was very beautiful, on narrow paths along the cliff top, sometimes rocky, sometimes swampy, with waterfalls and more amazing lookouts than I could ever post photos of.
The three of us enjoyed the day so much, that I got invited again - to just tag along, meet up with Timmy and Michelle in Blackheath and then drive down into the Megalong Valley where apparently the world's best apple cake was made.
So we went! The apple cake was expensive, but I have to say, truly yummy and worth it!! And after a good hike one deserves a little treat, right?
We camped the night in a free campsite nearby and parted ways in the morning, for they were going to leave the mountains and head north while I wanted to stay longer before I'd go south. Still, what lovely encounter! You're awesome, Thanks guys, big hugs!
The next day I went to do the Grand Canyon walk, which my Swedish friends had done before and highly recommended. The weather was summerly hot, perfect blue sky, and what can I say - sooooooo gorgeous! There is no way I could describe it -
you climb a steep stairway down into a narrow gorge where a creek flows, and then you follow it along as it winds its way deeper and deeper into the rock, until the path takes you only along the side of a cliff because the little creek is rushing and bubbling far down below in a even narrower, deeper gorge, just a black chasm you look into from the railings where it drops vertically down into the dark...
I had my ipod in my pocket and my little speakers stuffed in my hair, so I could play Lord of the Rings Soundtrack while walking. Fit perfectly!
And I met lots of dragons! Australian Water Dragons, the biggest lizard to be found in Australia.
This one wasn't scared at all. For some 1 minutes I sat on the rocks next to him - I could have touched him without stretching my arm. I shared bits of my apple with him which he chewed with his toothless jaws and he just kept eyeing me with those actually really smart-looking eyes. Maybe there's my imagination taking me for a ride, but there's a sort of expression of wisdom in them. As if he knew everything about me and about his valley and about deeper things in nature that I can't even comprehend.... okay it must be my imagination :)
Still, very pretty he is!
I felt like I wasn't quite exhausted enough to call it a day, so I followed the cliff for another three hour walk (but this time an "easy" rated one) that took me to a sweet little waterfall and back to my car. On this path, I met Guido for the first time, a young Dutch backpacker, also travelling on his own.
Overhanging cliff walls, overgrown with plants all in green...
Colourful gum tree bark and bush flowers.
The next day I wanted to climb down into the Grose Valley after all. I just didn't feel like I had reached my physical limit yet - I didn't even have sore muscles in my legs or sore feet, and my knee was awesome despite all the stairs - so I decided to really push it this day.
I went down the stairs into the Grand Canyon again, from Evan's Lookout coming, but then turned off not into the Canyon but over the Rodriguez Pass in direction of the open valley.
That was a decent adventure! It's obvious that the masses of tourists usually don't go that way because the "path" was not well maintained - well, if you could call it a path at some points at all! More than once I lost the track and just fought myself a way through the shrub, hoping to find it again. Sliding down screes, climbing over rocks, jumping from stone to stone to cross the creek, ducking under trees and crawling over logs... later I found the path again and it sent me rock climbing down into the valley next to the creek that had turned into lots of little waterfalls, jumping from step to step and rushing around massive boulders that lay splintered at the bottom. Obviously they had fallen down from the cliff that was towering hundreds of metres high above my head! Better not think about what might happen if another one would fall just now...
Well there was the challenge I had asked for.
But the weather was absolutely gorgeous and the path got a lot better once I was over the pass, and I just couldn't resist walking further and further, down and down, along the creek, despite the menacing thought of climbing all the way back up again...
There at the bottom of the valley, I met Guido the Dutch backpacker a second time.
We decided that this coincidence for sure meant that we should just go hiking together the following day. We had a chat, exchanged numbers and said See Ya, because he had come from the opposite direction.
Someone build a little shelter and a campsite next to the creek down there in the valley! What an awesome little get away....
I walked until I reached Junction Rock which marked where my creek united with another creek coming from the Horseshoe Falls, then I turned around and because the is was already way later than I thought, I tried to stride steadily and without delay up, up, up the valley, over the pass and up the stairs back to Evan's Lookout.
Descended and ascended maybe 600m metres - I was sooo tired then!
I reached Laurie when it was soon going to be sunset time, ate some leftovers and got ready for bed, but then those guys came along: Chris with his two girls Belinda and Amber!
And they are now seriously interesting characters, and sitting under the bright stars for hours with Chris on our camping chairs I heard their story.
WOW! Since two years, they are living on the road, travelling laps around the continent. Chris is working as a photographer and does jobs that come up along the way (for example mustering cattle in Western Australia!), he is home schooling his 11 and 10 year old daughters, and for sure they are getting the best education when it comes to life skills and knowledge about culture, nature and landscape of their home country! Minimalistic, family orientated, social, far away from internet and phones and tablets to waste time away with. Only a caravan and a station wagon to pull it - but the frickin best backyard in the whole world!
HOW AWESOME IS THAT?
I think they are leading the million-dollar life of ultimate freedom.
The next day I picked up Guido in Blackheath and we went to hike the overcliff and undercliff walk at Wentworth Falls.
My camera is far to crappy to capture it well, but the falls were truly mesmerising. For maybe half an hour Guido and me stood underneath and couldn't stop gazing up at the water that got blown off the rocks by the wind, millions of drops sparkling in mid air with the sun rays coming from above. It was like a flowing curtain of water mist was forever gliding around the rocks, from here to there, slowly and gracefully hovering and floating to the ground... I swear I could see galloping horses and love hearts taking shape in it!
There, Guido as a hobby photographer had a quite good camera and this looks a lot better!
Once again, steep steep stairways...
And again, first my photo
then Guido's
We walked the three hour walk really slowly, trying to make the most of it, stopping for breaks filled with taking photos and talking every now and then. Guido is for sure also an interesting traveller (well, most travellers are!) and we both had a great day hiking together. We'll stay in touch! One never knows where we might meet again...
If you like, check out his facebook page and his blog (and his PHOTOS!)
Look at all those fancy clothes
But these can keep us warm just like those
And what about your soul?
Is it cold?
Is it straight from the mold and ready to be sold?
Cars and phones and diamond rings, bling bling
Those are only removable things
What about your mind, does it shine?
Or are there things that concern you more than your time?
Gone, going, gone, everything, gone, give a damn
Gone be the birds if they don't wanna sing
Gone people, all awkward with their things, gone
Look at you, out to make a deal
You try to be appealing but you lose your appeal
And what about those shoes you're in today?
They'll do no good on the bridges you burned along the way
Are you willing to sell anything, gone with your head
Leave your footprints, well shame them with our words
Gone people, all careless and consumed, gone
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