New Year’s Eve and the Blue Mountains

One of the anchors of our Australia trip was being in Sydney for New Year’s Eve. As you can imagine, hotel prices were quite high. Vince’s clever strategy was spending 2 nights at an airport hotel away from the city center, then going to the Blue Mountains for the first 2 nights of the new year. Thanks to Sydney’s excellent public transportation, it was both feasible and easy to get between these places, enabling us to keep the costs down while enjoying the fireworks.

The flight from Hobart to Sydney was a short 1.5 hours, and the Uber ride to the hotel was a short 10 minutes. Still, we were tired from our long day at the MONA. We requested a blanket from the hotel to use as a picnic blanket, and then went to bed.
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Our plan for viewing fireworks was to line up early and get into the Botanical Gardens, which were facing the Opera House and harbor. This was the first year that the city of Sydney was making several prime viewing areas free to the public, so there was no precedent on how early was sufficient to get in. The queue was available from 7:00am and the gates closed at 11:00am, which gave us a rough timeframe. We had breakfast at the hotel, picked up groceries for lunch, took the metro into the city center, and were in line by 8:30am.

​The event logistics were impressively organized. For the morning queue, a large grass field was spray painted with orderly rows, including space for people to get in and out. The bags were inspected by security, and guards were present throughout the gardens. There were ample bathrooms and a whole row of food vendors. The area was capped at 10,500 people, so once we staked our picnic spot, we didn’t have to worry about latecomers trying to squeeze in.

​The 15.5 hour wait was grueling. It was comfortable enough on the blanket, but there was still lots of foot traffic and portable speakers with clashing music. Thankfully the temperature was cool and the sky was overcast, so we didn’t have to worry about roasting. We napped, played cards, read, and took turns stretching our legs to walk around the grounds. Ibises roamed throughout the park, pecking the grass with their long beaks, and a possum was napping in the nook of a tree. Rachel got us some spiffy glowstick accessories, including a hat and glasses.

​There was a disappointing amount of tree cover that obscured the view of the harbor, and later, the fireworks. The opera house was only visible from a few specific vantage points, which were teeming. When the first round of fireworks went off at 9:00pm for the Welcome to Australia ceremony, we couldn’t really see them from the blanket. However, we could see lots of enormous bats flying between the trees, especially when the fireworks startled them out of their roosts.

​As it got closer to midnight, we stood in one of the crowded areas with the better view. Some obnoxious French people were standing on benches, chanting, and a fight almost broke out amongst them. Finally, the fireworks began. There were multiple launch sites all around the harbor, and the show was expertly synchronized. The bridge was a central character, featuring lights of its own, plus fireworks launched off the top and sides. The Opera House and fleet of boats on the water were cast with dazzling lights – pink, blue, white, and gold.

It took about 1.5 hours to get back to the hotel. The metro was understandably packed, and we barely got onto the second one. One of the neat things about the Sydney metro was that you could tag on and tag off with a normal credit card – no special city card needed. We skirted around the edge of a dark park, with more bats in the trees. All things considered, it was a smooth getaway.

The hotel had a large breakfast buffet, a treat after so many oatmeal and toast mornings. We navigated our bags to the nearest metro station and rode into Sydney’s central station. I ordered an iced latte, which was lost in the flurry of orders, and had to ask for it again. We boarded the train to the Blue Mountains, which had 2-story cars but no luggage storage areas. After painfully squeezing through several narrow staircases and aisles, we gave up and put our large suitcases on seats.

The train quickly navigated out of the Sydney suburbs. It slowed its speed as we entered the bushland, getting us to Katoomba in under 2 hours. Our AirBNB was a 5-minute walk, a cottage obscured by a perimeter of plants and dense front garden. The cleaner was still finishing up, so we dropped our bags and doubled back into town. We ate lunch at a Thai restaurant, a nice respite. One grocery run later, and we were ready to relax for the evening.

Dinner was our now-usual pasta dinner, including lentil-based penne, mushrooms, spinach, and red sauce. I opened a bottle of red wine from Barossa with a wombat on the label. The wifi router was accidentally unplugged, and we spent an hour trying to get the connection back.

​The next day, the others stayed at the AirBNB and rested while I went for a hiking expedition. I caught a bus from downtown to the Three Sisters Lookout. The bus was absolutely packed. I was lucky to get onboard, and also lucky to squeeze my way to the door at my stop.

​When I arrived, the view was completely obscured with a blanket of fog. I went into the visitor center to get the trail status of a hike that I had in mind. The ranger gave me detailed instructions for several related hikes, marking the detours and approximate times in an intense briefing. I stuck to my guns and did the loop that I originally had in mind: the Dardanelles Pass Loop trail.

​The trail started out with a wide and paved walkway down to a lookout point by the Three Sisters, an iconic set of three rock towers. The trail quickly morphed into a set of twisting, steep, and uneven steps called the Giant Staircase. The path descended the cliff face right next to the first “sister.” It was often only wide enough for one person at a time, despite being a two-way path. Several groups looked at the trail and decided to turn around – justifiably so. It was humid, and I was sweating even on the downhill. I took it slow, which also gave time to enjoy the views. The vastness of the sandstone plateaus and basins, slowly becoming visible as the fog dissipated, was breathtaking.

​The Giant Staircase had taken me down into the basin, where the cliffs merged with the fern-filled forest. The forest echoed with the caws of cockatoos, the trickle of waterfalls, and loudly spoken Portuguese from the group ahead of me. After getting ahead of them, I enjoyed the tranquility of this lush green environment, stopping occasionally to pick up on the subtle movements of the fantails and parrots camouflaged in the treetops.

​The ascent was more forgiving than the Giant Staircase, with fewer people and more metal steps. Having regained all of the elevation, the views were excellent. I had an entire viewing platform to myself, a front row seat to the blue haze that gives the Blue Mountains their name. It’s believed that the blue haze is caused by eucalyptus oils in the air that scatter the light.

​The next phase of the hike followed the Prince Henry Cliff Walk along the edge of the plateau. There were regularly spaced lookouts, some better than others, but a nice excuse to stop and admire the scenery. 

I was hoping to spot a lyrebird, as they’re common in the area, and was thrilled when I heard one in the brush! The lyrebird has an elegant tail, a bit like a peacock’s, but with translucent feathers in the middle of the fan. The curvature of the outer, darker feathers resembles their namesake musical instrument. But it just so happens they are musicians too – they have a wide vocal range and can imitate other birdcalls and human sounds. Through my binoculars, I watched one browse in the soil, fluff its wings, and shake its tail at a rival.

​I arrived back at the visitor center, and the Three Sisters were now visible from the viewing platform. They were majestic, and better appreciated from this higher angle, compared to the low angle from the Giant Staircase.

I fought my way onto the bus again, listening to an overly-eager local tell a tourist their views on climate change. I stopped at Woolworth’s for a few goodies, including an ice cream that really hit the spot on this hot, post-hike afternoon. Outside the store, a lady walked by with a large snake around her neck, on the way to the pet store. It started pouring a minute before I made it back to the cottage.

Rachel and Vince made dinner, including sweet potatoes, broccoli, and tempeh. I finished the wombat wine and had a nice evening of journaling.
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Checkout the next morning was smooth. We waited at the train station on a bench in the hot sun. The person sleeping on the bench behind us woke up, tried to strike up a conversation by mumbling something about enjoying the journey in life, then wandered off. The train was emptier today, and the skies clearer as we headed back to Sydney.