Jen and I are finally back from our weekend trip to Sydney to go abseiling. Things didn't go quite as we had originally planned, but we sure had a lot of fun and many adventures along the way! Most of the photos that go with this weekend's story can be found in my "Sydney Abseiling Weekend" album on Facebook.We left Melbourne on Thursday evening. We had a nice, easy flight to Sydney and were picked up at the airport by our friend Carroll. She took us to Ruth's house, where we would be staying for the next few days. Jen and I hadn't eaten dinner yet (we basically flew over the dinner hour, and since we'd've had to pay to buy food on the plane, we just didn't eat), but fortunately Ruth had ordered a ton of Chinese food, so we helped her eat the leftovers. Yay!
Friday morning our plan was to go into Sydney and take Jen to the Opera House, since she hadn't seen it on her last visit to the city. We got off to a bit of a later start than we'd originally planned, because Jen and I distracted Ruth as she went to lock the house - and she accidentally locked her keys (including her car keys) inside the house! So we had to call Carroll and ask her to come over and unlock Ruth's house (Carroll lives about 10 minutes away) before we could go anywhere. Poor Ruth! The first morning all week that she didn't have a pre-school meeting, and she lost all her pre-school prep time anyway because of the silly door! Anyhow, after sorting out the whole key thing, Ruth dropped Jen and I off at the train station and we headed on our way.
Our first stop was to Paddy's Market, a big inner-city market much like the Victoria Market in Melbourne, but not as good. We were getting pretty desperate to find purses for the Melbourne Cup. Unfortunately, once more we were thwarted in our quest, and found no suitable purses at the Market. The weather was being uncooperative too - the day had started off cloudy and by the time we'd gotten to the Market, it was raining pretty steadily. When we were ready to leave the Market it was pouring, so instead we found ourselves some lunch and ate before venturing any further.
The next stop was the Sydney Opera House. Jen wanted to walk there from Paddy's - and let me tell you, it's a long way. We had somehow managed to not bring a map of downtown Sydney with us, so I was basically guessing on which way we needed to go. (I knew the general direction, just not the actual streets!) The nice thing about Sydney is that all throughout the tourist core, there are street corner maps that show you where you are - so once we finally found one of those, it was pretty simple to find our way to the Opera House. On our way there, we passed through Hyde Park. I'd eaten lunch there about a month ago when I went to the museum. The park has a beautiful fountain, which we walked around and enjoyed. We also came across several jacaranda trees - which really stand out at this time of year because they're completely covered in vibrant purple flowers!
After many, many city blocks, we finally made it to the Opera House and really only had time to snap a few photos before we had to head off again. We were meeting up with a Guider from Bondi for the afternoon. So it was back to Circular Quay to catch the train, and we were soon at Bondi Junction. Megan and her daughter Sharni picked us up and whisked us off to Bondi beach, where a sculpture festival was going on. We wandered the seaside trails around Bondi for a good couple of hours, enjoying all the different sculptures. They're all for sale and will be sold off at the end of the festival, with the money going to various local charities. We loved the sculptures. Apparently this goes on every year, with completely new sculptures each year.
In fact, Jen and I loved the sculptures so much, we decided that we should share 'em with everyone else! I've posted an album on Facebook called "Name That Sculpture Contest!". You guessed it - we're hoping that these sculptures inspire you as much as they inspired us! And yes, we will be awarding a prize to whomever most aptly names one of the sculptures in the photo gallery. The only trick, I guess, is that you need to be one of my Facebook friends in order to be able to leave comments under the pictures. So if you see something you really want to name, and can't do it on Facebook, leave the comment here in the blog. Just remember to tell me which sculpture you're talking about! The contest closes at 8pm on Monday, November 12th (Australia time) - so good luck!
After enjoying a smoothie (courtesy of Megan - thanks!) and the beach view at Bondi, we all piled back into her car and drove off to the local Guide hall, where Jen and I ran a campfire for the Bondi Guides. This was kinda neat. I've posted on my website about my visit to Australia, and invited Australian Guiders to email me and I'd see if I could manage to come and visit their units. Well, in this case, it was one of Megan's girls who emailed me - so of COURSE I had to go and meet her! We had lots of fun teaching new songs and singing old favourites, and at the end of the evening we all enjoyed some s'mores. (Raw, unfortunately, because we had to do the campfire indoors as the rain came back.) Megan was kind enough to drive Jen and I back to Ruth's house, halfway across the city. We got home pretty late and had to get up early on Saturday for the start of our abseiling adventure!
Saturday morning dawned cold, grey, and rainy. Wah! Definitely not the sort of weather to go abseiling in. But we packed up anyway and headed for the Blue Mountains, a 2-hour drive away, in the hopes that the weather might clear by the time we got there. No such luck! If anything, the weather got steadily worse as we climbed into the hills! We stopped in Blackheath for a morning snack and to decide what we would do for the day, since it was looking like abseiling was going to be impossible in this weather. There's a wonderful little cafe in Blackheath called The Wattle, which Ruth and Carroll pretty much always stop at when they're up in the mountains. There we met up with Helen, the last member of our abseiling group. We enjoyed some fresh-cut chips and hot chocolate (it was so cold and damp outside!) and decided that we definitely couldn't abseil in this weather. Instead, we decided we'd head to the Jenloan Caves, about a 45-minute drive away, and explore there for the days. My logic was that at least touring the caves would be indoors and out of the rain!
We also enjoyed being "sneaky Canadians" this morning - as we all got up to leave the cafe, Carroll went to go and pay the bill - only to discover that Jen had already paid it! Jen and I had agreed before the start of the trip that we were gonna pay for as many of the group meals as we could manage to, since Carroll and Ruth have been so kind to us already. So under the guise of going to the bathroom, Jen had already been to the counter and paid up. Carroll said she was going to "have her eye on us" for the rest of the trip. Hee hee hee...
The drive to the caves was beautiful. As we crossed over the major ridges of the Blue Mountains, the skies cleared and we had sunny weather. The last part of the drive reminded me very much of our travels in Tasmania - crazy windey hilly narrow roads, breathtaking views... but I wasn't prepared for the entrance to the caves! We drove right THROUGH a mountainside, into a huge cavern, and out the other side to where the parking lot and visitor's centre was! It was awesome.
I couldn't wait to go exploring, but first we had to deal with a cheeky parrot who arrived at our car about 1.5 seconds after we parked, obviously looking for food. He was cute but pretty darn persistent! We managed to snap a few photos, until another car pulled in and the parrot decided they were more interesting than we were. Then it was off to the ticket counter to book a tour. I hadn't realized that, unlike the cave we visited in Tasmania, this place was a huge complex of caves! There were something like 27 different tours we could sign up for - some of them really easy, some of them really challenging. We ended up visiting the Lucas Cave.
It was incredible. This cave alone was easily 10 times the size of the Hastings Caves in Tasmania, and it was only a fraction of the cave system at Jenloan! We walked into a chamber called the Cathedral, which was large enough you could build a respectable sized church inside it (both footprint wise and height wise). Yes, couples have gotten married there. There were these ancient iron ladders bolted into a couple of places that climbed way up into the heights of the cave. Apparently these were put in place almost 100 years ago so that the light bulbs could be changed - and the ladders are still in use today! We also went into a second cavern the size of a rugby field, and passed some dazzling calcite formations that were completely snow white and sparkly. Very, very cool. Definitely a good way to spend a so-called rainy day!
We ate lunch and decided to head back towards Katoomba, where we would be staying overnight, to see if the weather had improved at all. By the time we got to Mount York, where we were supposed to have gone abseiling, the weather had cleared nicely! We stopped there briefly so Ruth and Carroll could scout the anchor points, and so Jen and I could get a first glimpse at where we would be in the morning. Let me tell you, the first time I looked over the edge of the cliff, my heart nearly stopped! Then they explained to me that we weren't going all the way down the cliff; it was just that from our vantage point we couldn't see the ledge/slope where we would be stopping. That made me feel a wee bit better. :-)
There wasn't enough time to do any abseiling this afternoon, so we spent the rest of the day exploring the shops in Katoomba. Lots of nice little touristy spots, as expected, including a couple of really good antique/collectibles places, outfitters, and book stores. Jen and I were very well-behaved and didn't buy anything. We ate dinner at a charming little cafe where a live jjazz duet was playing, which created a nice ambiance. Once again Jen and I managed to sneak the bill away from Ruth and Carroll (this time literally from under their noses, ha ha!) and paid for dinner. Sneaky Canadians, indeed! We had no sooner returned to the hostel than the skies, which had been well-behaved most of the afternoon, opened up and it POURED rain. Thunder, lightning, the whole works. We went to bed fervently hoping that Sunday would be a better day. It would suck it we'd flown all the way up from Melbourne for nothing!
We were in luck! We woke up Sunday morning to chilly air, but bright blue skies and only little puffy clouds in the distance. So it wasn't long before we'd all piled into the cars and headed off again! We were hoping to go back to The Wattle for breakfast, but when we got there, it was completely full! We didn't want to waste time waiting for a table, so we went to another cafe just down the street - which was (suspiciously) completely empty. We found out why when we ordered our food. When the food came out, they had messed up all of our orders! Remember that we were the only people in the restaurant at the time. The waittress had to take our orders a second time and then head back to the kitchen to reshuffle the food. Grr. This morning was one of the few times I've been glad that we're not expected to tip here. When the food finally did arrive, I thought it was passable but not the best. I had a fairly typical "big" breakfast - 2 eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, tomato, mushrooms, and toast. Cost - $15! Groan. I could get almost the same thing (minus the mushrooms, which weren't all that good anyway) in Ottawa for $3.99!
Enough complaining! We "let" Carroll and Ruth pay for breakfast (ha ha, and they thought that they'd slipped that one by us - sorry ladies, it was all part of the plan!), and headed back to Mount York. We were planning on doing today's abseiling in two parts. First, Jen and I would practice the techniques on a "bunny" rock (I thought it was funny that they use the same terminology in abseiling as we do in downhill skiing), and then we would abseil down the formation known as Snap, Crackle and Pop. When we got to the bunny rock, we found that a pair of guys was already there and set up. Carroll did some negotiating, and they agreed to let us abseil over the bunny rock on their rope setup, and meanwhile Carroll and Helen went off to set up our ropes for the bigger abseil. The guys would then use our ropes to go over Snap, Crackle, and Pop. This saved each group a good chunk of setup time.
Let me tell you, going over that first edge was hard - and the bunny rock wasn't really all that big! The hardest part for me was where you needed to lean backwards and let the rope take your weight. Or, as Carroll and Ruth liked to explain it, I needed to "trust the equipment". This was harder for me than for Jen. I swear she's fearless. Watching Jen go over the bunny rock made the whole thing look really easy, and I was eager to give it a try. But when it came my turn, I definitely struggled to balance myself properly. It got easier as the day progressed, though.
Once Ruth was satisfied with my performance on the bunny hill, we proceeded over to Snap, Crackle, and Pop. This turned out to be a 25m-odd drop straight down the side of a cliff. The photos I took at this spot make the drop look a lot bigger than it actually was... but trust me, it was long enough for me for my first time! It was interesting watching Ruth, Carroll and Helen set up... Jen and I couldn't exactly help, since we had no idea what they were doing, and it was an odd sensation to be sitting on the sidelines instead of taking charge or at least helping out. Carroll showed us how they'd anchored the abseiling rope at two different spots on various trees, and explained all about the safety lines that she and Helen would be wearing as our instructors etc. We would be going over this edge using a top belay system, which basically meant that along with the abseiling rope that we would control ourselves, we'd also be attached to a belay rope that Carroll would control from the top of the cliff. That way, if we did let go of the rope, we still wouldn't fall anywhere because the belay rope would lock in place immediately. Very cool.
Once again, Jen went first - which was just fine by me! I was surprised by how quickly she was over the edge and down - and all I could hear from the bottom of the cliff was "That was the coolest thing EVER! Becky, get your butt down here!" Ha ha! Then it was my turn to try it. Carroll was great - she explained all the different bits that were attached to me and how they worked, and went over all the safety checkpoints before she let me go near the edge. My biggest problem turned out to be the take-off, because I had to crouch with my knees bent (ick) at an awkward angle until I was right out over the edge of the cliff. And again, that whole "trusting the equipment" thing was really hard! But to my surprise, once I was over and sitting in the right position, the rest of the descent was really pretty easy! Well, maybe except for the landing - there was a tree growing right at the landing point, and you couldn't see it until you basically landed with your back against it at the bottom of the cliff! Ruth was there waiting at the bottom to help me get all untied, and then after a brief rest, I hoofed it up the path to the top to do it again!
I think I went over the edge 4 times in total, and it definitely got easier each time. Well, except for the run where Carroll decided to show Jen (who was back up at the top, waiting her turn) what would happen if the belay rope was locked in place. So there I am, halfway down the cliff and dangling in midair, and suddenly I couldn't descend anymore! I didn't know that the belay line had been locked - and neither did Ruth! She kept calling up to me to try adjusting my hand on the descender etc. to get the abseiling rope to move, but nothing was working! It wasn't until Carroll called down from the top of the cliff that she had locked the belay line that we realized what was going on. Ha ha! Once Carroll unlocked the belay, I could move again, and made my way to the bottom.
By then, it was time to stop for lunch, and as we sat there eating by our rope set-up, another group approached us, wanting to set up and go over the edge. The protocols here are fairly clear. We were already set up and obviously using this particular launching point, so they should have gone on somewhere else. Well, they did move a little bit down the rock face, but the guy anchored his line right over our anchor point - and right over our ropes - which is a BIG no-no. He also wasn't anchoring his ropes properly and clearly had no idea what he was doing. Carroll and Ruth explained to us that these guys had probably gone climbing or abseiling in an indoor gym and then figured they were ready for the real thing - but the problem is that the set-ups and anchor systems are completely different. Carroll and Ruth were becoming more and more concerned that these guys were going to do something dangerous and either get hurt or killed (or hurt/kill one of us if we stayed there to play during the afternoon), so we made the decision that it was time to pack up and head out.
So all in all, we only did about half the abseiling we'd originally hoped to do, but it was still an awesome weekend. I think it's fair to say that I have gotten over (most) of my fears to do with this sport, and I'm looking forward to trying it again! We're hoping to plan another weekend trip later in the year, so we can go abseiling down a place called the Malacia (sp?) Walls. This would be an all-day abseil, where we start at the top of the canyon wall and travel all the way down to the bottom in about 6 stages. COOL.
Our trip back to Melbourne came all too soon! This morning we got up at 5:30 and were out the door by 5:50 to head to the airport. The flight itself was fine, but the wait for the bus here in Melbourne was crappy. Once again, let me complain about the Melbourne public transit system and the lack of an all-city bus route map. Grrr. Suffice it to say it took us over an hour to catch a bus, and then a bus/tram/bus transfer to get us home again. When we landed here this morning it was only 11C outside (I know you're all feeling sympathetic to our plight!), so I was absolutely FREEZING by the time we got home! Jen and I basically got into our room, shut the door, and collapsed on our beds for a nap!
What an awesome weekend. Thanks so much to Ruth, Carroll, and Helen, for without you wonderful ladies, our adventures would not have been possible. I know I speak for Jen as well when I say that we're really looking forward to abseiling with you again later on this year!
