We spent yesterday with my sister and my brother. Walking the neighborhood and buying some seafood and takeout for my sister to cook an early dinner before Fai and Kerry's departure to Singapore last night. They are going to visit Singapore first and then Penang before going to Guangzhou for Kerry's reunion dinner with her high schoolmates.
We headed to the famous Blue Mountain this morning. It took two hours by suburban train to reach Katoomba where we started the hike along the cliff very similar to the Grand Canyon. The view was spectacular although it was made hazy by a wild fire not too far away. The Three Sisters, three rocky columns resulted from eons of erosion, are the major attraction for the park. The first column was accessible by some very steep stairs. It was well worth the efforts.
Blue Mountain was formed when a section of the earth crust was raised over a thousand meters along a fault line. Severe erosion ensured to form the specular cliff faces we see today. Blue Mountain and its surrounding areas are so remote that just very recently in the 1990s, scientists discovered some of the oldest stands of known tree species on earth. The locations of these tree ferns were kept secret to the public in order to preserve them. I watched a documentary before that said even many scientists involve in the project have to be blindfolded during their helicopter rides to the sites!
It's obvious that we won't have a chance to see these trees on this trip but we still did some hiking along the cliff edge to the next town, Leura, before heading back to Sydney. The few tree fern we saw on our way were not very old. The whole mountain is covered by beautiful majestic Euculiptus forest. In fact, it is the oil vapor given off by these trees that gives the blue hue to the mist in the mountains and hence the name Blue Mountain.
It's funny that our Australian relatives highly recommended us to watch out for the maple trees changing color to red in the mountains. We only saw a small number of maple trees there and it's nothing compared to the riot of different colors we have in Canada.
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