Thursday June 25, 2009 - Hiking in the Blue Mountains

Today I got up early and caught the 8:25 am train out of Sydney and spent about 2 hours on the train heading out to Katoomba. After getting off the train, finding my way to the hostel and checking in, I decided to get a move on and get started outside so I didn’t waste any time. I took off from the hostel around 11 or 12 and headed towards the end of town where the lookouts are. Now looking at maps of the area, if doesn’t look like too long of a distance from Katoomba main CBD to the lookouts but it’s farther than it looks and all downhill, which is fine heading there, but also means that after hours of hiking I will have to head back up this big hill after my legs are already jelly-like.
I hit the area where the trails start and the first lookout I stopped at, you could see down into the valley and off onto the mountains in the distance. Looking to the right, I could see Scenic World which is a tourist attraction that has a scenic skyway, which is a carriage that has a see through floor and goes from one side of the little valley to the other, that back again. There’s a cablecar you can take down to the valley below or back up. There also a funicular railway which is the steepest passenger carrying railway in the world. There’s also some historical stuff, which I’ll get into later. I then headed to the left, towards Echo Point. Echo Point is the main lookout area here. There’s a big tourist center and it’s where all the buses coming in from Sydney for the day stop at. There’s a nice lookout right to the 3 sisters, a big rock formation that’s a highlight of the Blue Mountains. There’s a whole legend behind the 3 sisters. How they used to be girls and then their father turned them to stone to protect them from some man, then lost the bone or whatever he used to change them and couldn’t change them back. I’m sure if I wasn’t too lazy I could google it and give a better explanation of the legend, but I am lazy, so google it yourself if your that interested. I then kept heading in the direction of the 3 sisters. Unfortunately it must have been raining here quite a bit the past week or so (as it has in Husky) because there were parts of the path that were pretty muddy. I tried my best not to get too dirty. I made it to the Giant Staircase, which is exactly what it sounds like. A big staircase that meanders pretty steeply down the side of the cliff to the valley below. It’s actually pretty narrow and steep. I had a hard enough time going down, and I must admit, laughed a little bit at the people coming up. Oh did I mention it’s 900 steps, 900 steep steps. There’s a bunch of places to stop along the way up and/or down with benches to take a break. If you were heading up, man would you need those. Dave had mentioned before that he went with his wife, Mary, and he said, if you go down to the valley, walk down, ride up. So I took his advice and I’m glad I did. I finally made it to the bottom of the Giant Staircase and met up with a trail to take me back towards Scenic World. The trail takes you right underneath the sisters, so you’re looking straight up at them. Then takes you past the Katoomba falls and over to Scenic World. Now down here in the valley, there are some attractions. Apparently their used to be a mine so you can still see and look into the mine. There are boards with info posted about the mine and tools used and statues. The railway was actually first built in order to bring coal up to the top of the cliff. Now of course, it carries people! I decided to take the railway up, as opposed to the cablecar. I could see the tracks for the railway and boy did they look steep! I saw a couple carloads of people coming down, screaming as they went. When you first get into the seat, it’s almost like your laying on your back, the seats are that tilted. Then when the ride starts and you head uphill, so straighten up into a “regular” sitting position. The train actually moves pretty swiftly. Then you hit a point where the incline gets even more severe, I was practically standing up! No wonder people screamed on the way down, I can see where it would definitely be exhilarating coming down, especially at the speed it goes. Of course the top is all caged and there’s a bar that comes down over the laps for the ride down, so no one goes flying out to their death. It also goes through rock at one point, so you’re completely surrounded by darkness. It was very cool. I would have liked to have ridden it down and also rode the other rides as well, but I really didn’t want to spend the extra money. I mean, I’ve been in a cable car before and I would just see the stuff I’d already seen. The skyway would probably be neat though. I would be an interesting perspective to be able to look straight down through the floor to the forest below. After arriving at the top at Scenic World, I spent some time wondering around. There’s a huge store, with souvenirs of all kinds, there’s a café, a restaurant, a little theatre. I did make a purchase. I picked up something I’ve been meaning to get, just to have on a hand, a poncho. It takes up like no space and when you’re traveling you never know when you might need one. I also had picked up at an outdoors store before I set off on the hike, a cheap pair of fleece gloves. I didn’t bring any gloves here with me to Australia but being here in the mountains where it’s a bit cooler, I figured, a $10 pair of fleece gloves wouldn’t be too bad an investment. Actually turned out a good plan. It was a nice day today, a bit cloudy and overcast, the sun wasn’t exactly shining through, but it wasn’t too too cold. At some of the lookouts however it was windy, especially at Echo Point. After Scenic World I trekked back towards Katoomba. Now not only was I south of town, I was also west. So I had even longer to go back. It was uphill the whole way. Just what one needs after hiking for like 5 hours, to head uphill for 30 minutes. I made it back into Katoomba CBD and spotted a Coles (grocery store), so headed inside to grab some dinner. I wasn’t really in the mood to cook anything major, so I just picked up a can of soup and some crackers. Something warm after a cool day. Plus, you know how I was sick a couple weeks ago, I thought it was gone. I wasn’t congested anymore, the sore throat was gone. Well the damn virus (or perhaps another one?) has reared its ugly head again. No sore throat, but sneezing and definite congestion and runny nose. So soup sounded pretty good. When I got back to the hostel, I pulled out my laptop and did some internet surfing and catching up with the action from State of Origin. (FYI – I am actually writing this on Friday the 26th). I met and chatted with some of the people here. Sat out by the fire outside, drank some complementary mulled wine, took a shower, ate my soup (while everyone else was actually, GASP, cooking. This one group of 3 people, I swear it took them 2 hours to finish their food from when they started. I don’t know what the hell they were making, but damn, it shouldn’t have taken that long! This is all stovetop, it’s not like they were baking something.) I headed to bed “early” probably about 10, but I think everyone else was still up, just hanging out. I had been up earlier than I had been in a while and I had gotten more exercise then I was used to, so I was pretty tired anyway.

Thursday June 25, 2009 - Witness to History

I am sitting here in a common room of my hostel in Katoomba, NSW in the Blue Mountains. I am waiting for my photos from the past couple days to load onto facebook and it is moving pretty slowly. I think it’s because the internet connection here is kinda slow, but hey, better that nothing. There is free wi-fi though, so I toted my laptop along with me so I could update as I go. (Yeah, I know, I don’t do that at home so why do it now? Well I have more free time…no tv.) Anywho… To catch up with what’s been going on the past few days. Poker on Tuesday, bad, bad and bad. I was not in a good mood coming home then I realized I had forgotten to set up to DVR “NCIS” and realized it was the season finale, that put me in an even worse mood. Unfortunately I can’t watch it here online because CBS (and NBC and ABD, etc) won’t let you watch things on their websites if you are coming from an internet connection outside the US or Canada. I think my only option might be to pay $# from iTunes to download it or just eventually wait and Netflix it, which is what I might do because who wants to pay $3 for something I’ll in all honestly probably only watch once?

Wednesday was a better day. Tom went to work for half a day then around noon-ish we headed out to make our way up to Sydney for the State of Origin rugby game. We pulled into the Holiday Inn, checked in then headed out to grab some grub because neither of us had eaten much all day. We hit up a bar/restaurant called “Cheers” that we had noticed last time we were in Sydney. They had a special going on for Origin where you could get a cheeseburger or chicken burger and a schooner of beer for $10. That’s pretty darn good. I also got a free beer bottle coozie  After we sat down, we were joined by some other Queensland fans who had flown down from Brisbane for the game. They were nice and Tom and I chatted to them for a bit. We heard on the news that the game was close to being a sell-out. I guess the Blues (New South Wales’ team) supporters knew they had to turn out in force to support their team, because Queensland won the first game in Melbourne. So if the Maroon’s (Queensland’s team) won this game they won the series and would become the first side to ever pull off the “four-peat”. Also, I think there was such a high turn-out due to that. People wanted to be a witness to an historical moment, should the Maroon’s win the game. The official spectator count was 80, 500. We were about 5 rows from the top, but were right on the 50 meter line. It was a lot of fun. We really got into the game and were jumping up and cheering. It reminded me how much I love live sporting events. The atmosphere is just so electric. The game got heated. There were a couple times where fights broke out and there were blows being thrown, the whole teams were brawling. I felt like I was at a hockey game! It was great! Apparently one of the guys on the Queensland team ended up breaking his jaw. Queensland pulled ahead early, than NSW fought back and looked like a better team in the second half. (Apparently like half the Queensland team had come down with food poisoning or something the day before and had been vomiting and suffering from diarrhea and had been on saline drips that day out of worry of dehydration, so you could see the fitness suffering). NSW fought back to 14-18 (after being down 0-18, a try is worth 4 points, then there is an “extra kick” which is called a goal that is worth 2 points. Both teams had scored the same number of tries but NSW had missed 2 of their goal attempts). So there’s only a little time left and NSW actually has hope, the stadium is coming alive again and then Queensland kicks it back into gear and scores a try with like a minute left and crushed the hopes of the NSW faithful. We had so much fun. It was so neat to be able to be there for a bit of history. That’s one of the good things about staying with Tom. If I had been constantly traveling I doubt I would have had this opportunity to catch this rugby game and see history made. Now I can check rugby game off my list of things to do. Plus it was at the Sydney Olympic Park from 2000, so now I can say I’ve seen that (at least a tiny bit of it).
I do have plans when I am in Adelaide to take a trip down to Melbourne and catch an AFL (Aussie Rules) game. If I am going to see AFL, I am going to see it in Melbourne, where the game started and the stadiums actually fill up.

I have to turn my computer off now because the hostel has a no computers in the lounge from 6-9 rule, plus my fingers are getting tired form typing, so I will finish updating later about my day of hiking today.

Monday June 22, 2009 - I actually saw sunshine today!

So after days and days of rain, there was finally sunshine today! Which meant I went out for a nice long walk/jog. I have been so cooped up the last few days. I never really noticed it till I was here, probably because I’ve never spent so much time inside before, but I can really tell how stale the air is inside. (I then stopped typing and got involved doing something else, so I never got to finish the though process) It was a nice day however.

Friday June 19, 2009 - Is the whole world raining?

Well it's been a rainy several days here. Which unfortunately means I haven't gotten outside as much as I've wished. It's all these sporadic showers. So it'll look nice and sunny out then I get my shoes and what not on and go outside and after a few minutes it'll start raining so I head home. Then later it'll let up, so I'll get ready to go out again, then the rain will start again. It's frustrating. The only way I get out of this house is going for walks and now I can't even get those done! It's also apparently been raining back home in DC, my mum and dad told me they got 1 inch of rain last night. Plus my plans for the day were ruined today. I had these plans for getting up and tuning into Fox Sports to watch coverage of the first day of the US Open, which was to begin airing here at noon, but due to the massive downpours happening on Long Island, play was called for the day after only 3 and some change hours. So they decided to scrap the airing of any of the tournament today. Boo. Now apparently they plan to start up again bright and early tomorrow morning trying to fit in the rest of the first round (like half of the players never even teed off) as well as the scheduled 2nd round. Apparently though it's supposed to continue the downpour tomorrow so who knows how much golf will be played tomorrow or even this weekend? I wonder how long this thing will drag on? So apparently rain has been a problem all over the world lately.

Tonight Tom and I head to the Regional Poker Tourney. As I mentioned before I have already qualified for states, so there's really no pressure for me, but Tom will try to finish in the top 15 (not including those already qualified for states) in order to qualify as well. I'll try to do as well as possible anyway though because there is always the chance to win money :)

Applied for a couple more temporary microbio technician jobs today. I'm just hoping I at least get some sort of response showing interest or anything. I haven't heard anything about any of the jobs I've applied for. It's a bit frustrating. I mean I am applying for 3-6 month temporary positions in the microbio world, sometimes jobs I am actually (IMHO) over-qualified for and nothing. No interest, or even invitation for an interview. Like I said, I think in some cases even though they are temporary positions and I already have a valid work visa, employers are hesitant to hire foreigners and would rather hire Australians. At least that's what I am telling myself. I just keep hope that one day I'll get lucky and someone will take interest...

Tuesday June 16, 2009 – I’m going to a rugby game and the Blue Mountains :)

I bought tickets to the second State of Origin rugby game that I was mentioning the other day! Yay! One of the things Craig told me before I left was that I had to go to an Aussie Rules game and I had to go to a rugby game. I’m gonna get to check off that rugby game. The game is Wednesday the 24th. I bought tickets for Tom and I so we’re gonna head up around lunchtime or so on Wednesday, go to the game then spend the night in Sydney. Luckily the next day in Sydney is some Navy send off thing that Tom was planning on going to anyway, so he’s gonna head to that then back home and I am heading off to the Blue Mountains for a few days. Apparently during the winter in the Blue Mountains is a winter yuletide sort of celebration, a Christmas in “June/July/August” sort of thing. So I am going to spend a couple days there then head back to Sydney Saturday morning for the state poker final I qualified for. I had originally planned on then coming back to Huskisson to try and do the SCUBA diving course. Thats not gonna happen though. I stopped by the SCUBA place and since it is the off season they don’t do the course every week. There has to be at least 2 people to do a course and there has only been interest from one other person for the foreseeable future, and that’s one person showing interest in July for part-time (over 2 weekends I think, as opposed to a four day Mon-Thurs thing). So I can’t do it when I want to because I am all alone…again. Man being a single really sucks sometimes! So because SCUBA diving is now off the agenda (at least for the next couple weeks), I have time to play with that last week in June. So if I come back to Sydney for the poker tourney on the 27th, depending on how much I did when I was at the mountains, if I didn’t get the things done I wanted to, I might go back to the mountains. Or maybe spend a few days in Sydney, or head north of Sydney a bit. Who knows, I may just decide as I do, depending on how things are going.

Friday June 12th, 2009 - Oops I forgot to mention...

I do have another plan. I am planning on getting my SCUBA certification. There is a place in town that you can do certifications through. It’s like $350 USD to do the full Open Water Certification, including all classroom supplies, all diving equipment, the open water dives, everything. And the open water dives are in Jervis Bay, which has really great diving. Some consider it the 2nd best place to dive in Australia after the Great Barrier Reef. Plus its seal season here, so I could be diving with the seals  Throw in possible dolphin and whale sightings on the boat and it’s a marine animal zoo of sorts. I have to get a diving physical then I hope to do the 4 day certification the last week in June. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. The place in Manassas it would cost $550 USD, plus the mandatory extra cost of buying your own snorkel, mask, fins and boot and the open water dives are in the quarry. So this is a much better deal, $200 cheaper and the diving is in a world class location. This way I can do something I’ve always wanted to and say I actually did something instead of sitting around watching tv! I’ll keep you updated…

Friday June 12th, 2009 - Playing Catch-up

First let me apologize for the laundry list of things I’m about to catch you up on. I don’t really do enough on a daily basis to update daily, so sometimes this “laundry list” is kind of the most efficient way to update.

Poker: You know how a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I won my first Tuesday night poker tournament? Well last week (June 2) Tom and I were on the final table and he took me out in 4th place enroute to a win. It was a bit of poetic justice seeing as though when I won, I took him out in 4th place. 4th place being so big, because they pay out to 3rd place. The 4th place finish did however give me enough points to bring me into 3rd place for the season and this was the last week of the season. That is huge because the top 3 at the end of the season automatically qualify for the state tourney. The state tourney is the tournament I went to play in up in Sydney 6 or so weeks ago. I got in then because I played in regionals and finished 6th and that’s how I qualified. This time I qualified directly from finishing 3rd for the season at my venue so I am bypassing the whole qualifying through regionals thing. Regionals however is next Friday night and States the week after up in Sydney area again. Then this past week (June 9th) I finished the night in 4th place again! Just outside the money for 2 weeks in a row! But it did give me a good chunk of points to start out the new season.

Sick: This past week or so I’ve been sick…boo. Just a little head cold thing, no swine flu or anything. I started out last Thursday with a bit of a sore throat, that developed into a congestion/runny nose deal. It kind of shot the whole weekend, being tired and sick. Dave, our next door neighbor and his wife (who flew in from Adelaide where they live) are off to Italy for a month to drive around the country then take a 12 day cruise in the Mediterranean. They left on Monday, which was actually a holiday here (it was the Queen’s birthday) and Tom drove then up to Sydney to the airport. I was going to tag along, then on the way back down, take the coastal route that we don’t usually take, but being sick I decided it probably wasn’t the best idea to be in a car for 6 hours feeling like crap.

Job: I haven’t heard anything back about any of the applications I put in, which is a bit frustrating. I mean, I worked for a leading US bioresources company for 3 years, I would hope that would at least get me some interest somewhere. Everytime I went to a conference in the states and told people I worked for ATCC I would get ooohs and awws and people were impressed, even international people. So why isn’t that helping me out here? Grr.

Travel: I am going somewhere! Shocker! Dave was giving me a hard time about being here for 2 months not really having done anything or gone anywhere (which isn't entirely true, I've been to Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra). He was like, why the hell are you even here if you're not doing anything. It's not that easy though. Things are expensive here. When you factor in transport (plane/train/bus), plus lodging, plus food, that alone adds up quickly, in addition to any local transport, any activities/places to do/see, it gets really expensive. I'll come back to that in a minute. So Dave, the neighbor, actually lives in Adelaide and he is here because he's in the Navy. He is now semi-retired and has jetted off to Italy for a month with his wife to go on holiday driving around Italy and going on a cruise. When he gets back at the beginning of July, he is driving home to Adelaide and invited me to go with him and stay with them for a bit, which I happily agreed to. I'll get to see some of the interior of Australia (Adelaide is about 14 hours away, driving straight through) and get to see Adelaide (which I've heard isn't very exciting but at least I can check it off my list). He’ll be there for about 3 weeks then is driving back here to spend a month or so I guess. So I can either hang out in Adelaide that come back with him, use Adelaide as a jumping off point for other places (from Adelaide I can either head up north, to Ayers Rock then onto Darwin, or head west to Perth and Melbourne isn't "that far" away...relatively). So that's my plan, head to Adelaide beginning of July. But I now have a month or so before that so I am trying to do something before then, spend some time traveling, but when I start researching things, it just gets more and more expensive. I thought about a trip up the coast hitting some spots in New South Wales, but factoring in trains/buses, lodging, food, actually doing things besides sitting in a hostel, and it would cost me more than I am willing to spend. I don’t want to drop 800-1000 for one week. So it’s not really a matter of not wanting to go places, its cost, things here are expensive. Like I said, I do have some options from Adelaide. I could jump on the Indian-Pacific Railway over to Perth, which would be a neat experience, it is sort of an iconic rail journey. Or take the Ghan up north to Darwin, stopping in Alice Springs (which is the nearest city to Ayer’s Rock). But of course those train journeys are gonna cost hundreds of dollars just for the transport. If I buy this $35 AUD backpacker card I could get a $600 AUD pass for 6 months unlimited travel on the Indian Pacific (Sydney-Adelaide-Perth), the Ghan (Adelaide-Alice Springs-Darwin) and the Overlander (Adelaide-Melbourne) so the only places missing on the pass would be Queensland (Brisbane and Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef) which are also places I want to go to, so to get to those places I’ve have to spend even more for transport. That price is just for a seat too (a reclining seat like an airplane seat, it might even have a tv in the seat in front like an airplane) not even a sleeper. So 2 days in a reclining seat, I don’t know if I could do that. At any rate, I am mulling over getting one of those. I am thinking about in this time taking a couple day trip up to the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. I don’t think that would be too expensive. I want to go up to Sydney on the 24th to go to the 2nd State of Origin Game (State of Origin is a rugby annual 3 game series between players who originate from Queensland and those from New South Wales. It’s a huge deal, it’s like a “cross-town rivalry.” The first game was in Melbourne and won by Queensland. The 2nd game is the 24th in Sydney and the 3rd game is in July in Brisbane. The players play harder in this series then in regular games. People who play on the same team regularly throw caution to the wind and go for the jugular on each other during Origin. So I’m thinking about going to Origin on the 24th, doing a couple days in the Blue Mountains, then coming back to Sydney for the poker tournament on the 27th. We shall see.

Well that’s it for now. I am tired of typing, my fingers hurt, plus it’s pretty cold here so the fingers are going kind of numb. I guess I should go turn the heat up.