Blue Mountains of Amazingness

So I traveled to the Blue Mountains this weekend for an orientation trip for University of Wollongong students run by Extreme Adventures Company. Wow, what a weekend! There was a group of 40 from all over the university (aka from all 4 different living campuses). We left on Friday evening to make the three hour drive to get to our Blue Mountains hostel for dinner time. We all hung out and had some drinks while playing cards and getting to know each other. In the morning, we woke up to take a trek in and abseil the mountains (they call repelling abseiling). We got our safety procedure and then went on a ten foot boulder to practice. I'm not gonna lie, I almost panicked going down on the rocks because I felt like I was so unprepared and just didn't know what I was doing. The woman leader said I was fine and I smiled and nodded but inside my head I was freaking out. I watched one of the Norwegian girls on the trip have her feet swing up over her head so she was almost upside down against the "test" rock and I just pictured myself doing the same thing. What you are supposed to do is keep your legs straight - which is quite hard to do going backwards down a rock because your instinct is to bend them into an athletic pose - then sit your bottom and almost make your body into an "L" shape as you move down the cliff. The scariest part was getting harnessed into the real drop line and just looking over the edge of what you need to potentially get down without freaking out. As I started my descent, I thought my heart was going to explode. My guide Patty noticed I was very jerky with the rope and he told me to just loosen my grip while I went down. Holy Smokes! That was so much easier! It turns out, we instinctively hold the rope tighter when we are scared so the rope gets pulled only a couple of inches instead of smoothly dropping you. I just imagined if my hand was loose on the ropes that I was just going to zip down and crash and burn at the bottom. But the ropes are tied in such a way that it causes enough friction to slowly release and let you gently soar down the cliff while building confidence. By the end of my first abseil down, I was dying to do it again because I had finally solved why I was so awkward before. I got to do the same mountain edge again before they moved us on to the largest cliff face - a 35-40 meter drop. This had more gaps and was a straight edge cut off which just makes for a scarier start haha. But it was awesome to zip down such a ridiculous mountain while bouncing off the face of the cliff and zig zagging here and there. So so cool.

After we did that, we had a quick lunch and packed up to go visit the three sisters. These are three amazing rock formations that aboriginal legend has it used to be three sisters whose tribe was about to be attacked. The witch doctor turned them all into stone - preserving them from any harm to be turned back when it was over. The witch doctor however was killed in the battle, leaving the three rocks to stay forever in this state. The views from the lookout were absolutely breathtaking - very similar to the grand canyon but with gum trees covering the whole valley. The eucalyptus inside the leaves of the gum trees produces an oil that in the humidity and sunshine of Australia makes a blue haze - hence the blue mountains. We then hiked a ten minute climb to cross a ladder and go inside one of the three sister formations. That was awesome because from the first lookout you could see the tiny people going through on the ladder on the mountain and then to actually be that speck for someone else was awesome. After site seeing obviously hitting up the gift shop (man, that craving for cheap souvenir things never goes away even when you get older) we boarded the bus and headed back to our hostel for dinner. We had a great steak dinner and while we were eating, a woman came over to our group. She was part of an irish dancing team that was doing a fundraiser for the Victoria Bush Fires so for $10 donation we could stay and learn how to do traditional Irish group dances. About 20 of us decided to stay and participate and man, I'm so glad I did. This was probably the highlight of my weekend and it was completely unintentional. We were so bad that it was just hilarious. We would attempt to learn the dances and after a bit got the flow to confidently dance around like we were straight from the heart land. We danced, drank and laughed all night. Our tour guide Pete was apparently being "too" loud for the leading dancer so after being scolded, the dancing was that much more hilarious. She then pointed him out later saying that his dancing was 'perfect' - I think she was trying to win brownie points. I was able to get our 60 year old bus driver up and dancing and we all just had a marvelous time messing up the dances but not caring because it was just so fun!

The next day we had an early morning wake up so we could start our hike down the blue mountains to see the Katoomba Falls. It was a beautiful hike down with rushing waterfalls, cockatoos flying everywhere and the most bizarre rock formations that were unbelievable. Once we got down to the bottom, we had our "kodak" moment sessions and headed back up the mountain on the steepest railway in the world - a 52 degree angle. My friends and I got the first and second row facing down which was pretty scary but excellent at the same time. Before we got on the train though, me being the idiot that I am decided to dismount the "display" horse they had for tourists and swing around the neck to the pathway. I didn't notice however that there was a big iron sign inbetween me and the path. I swung hip first into the sharp edge of the sign haha. It took my breath away for a moment and no one actually noticed that I did this stellar act until I was doubled over and trying to concentrate on something other than the pain. I have a pretty good pain tolerance so I just shook it off and kept on moving. I could feel my hip trying desperately to try and stop the internal bleeding that I had just inflicted in my body. I decided to show one of my friends on the trip to just make sure it didn't look to bad - the faces were not good haha. They both gasped and were like "oh my gosh Brenna, you need to get that checked out". I apparently had a big gash on my hip which was bleeding and a bruise of violet was already forming. I luckily got a tissue and plastered it on so I could get up the mountain. In the gift shop I was kindly helped by a man named Robert who took me in to the first aid "lounge" to fix me up. I forgot that alcohol wipes stung so that was another hit to the brain when I swabbed that on. Worst of all, after I was bandaged Robert wanted me to help him fill out an incident form so they could remove the hazardous sign. I didn't exactly know how to tell him that it was me that should be removed and not the sign as I swung into it (I just told him I wasn't looking and ran into the sign and not I guess the "whooole" truth) Oh goodness - but I'm totally fine - best of all it's going to be a sweet battle wound in a couple of days!

After the hike we packed up and went out to go grass carting. I was thinking in my head we would be in those caged little go carts going down a grass track. Yep, not the case. They were the most rickety metal contraptions with a tire attached for a seat and your steers were your feet on the front bar. A bunch of us missed the tutorial where they apparently went through how to break. A whole group of us launched off and when we got close to the stopping point, I suddenly realized I didn't know how to stop my careening cart. Flashbacks of me trying to ski and going straight down the mountain started filling my head. I ended up slowing down and then ramming into some poor girl on our trip - needless to say I was classified as a "people hitter" that people should watch out for. This was almost like back alley grass carting where at any moment I felt like I could flip over with a swerve of my feet or a loose bump in the grass. The carts also didn't look like they were going fast but ooo man, you could move! I ended up clipping another person on a different run but I slowly started getting the hang of slowing down. There were many spills and the numbers of participants dwindled with every go. Myself and five others were still going strong as we were told one more run. My friend Adam took some sweet videos which I got to upload on my computer to have. All in all it was a wicked jam packed with amazing experiences and a great way to start my adventure here! Oh yea speaking of, first class - tomorrow at 8:30 am...let's hope this goes well.