Leaving Sydney

Well, I'm getting ready to leave Sydney this morning. I just re-packed all my stuff for travel, cramming it all into every nook and cranny in my pack. I've also got a couple of bags of mostly food that I am dragging along as well.

Something a little bit weird happened while I was gone from the hostel all day yesterday visiting the Blue Mountains. I came back in and found that my pillow (actually, the hostel's pillow) was missing, as well as my toothbrush bag with my toothbrush, toothpaste, baking soda and hydrogen peroxide that I had left sitting on my bed. I got another pillow from the desk, but still can't find my dental stuff. It's not a big deal, just a minor irritant. It might even be in the room somewhere; everybody else in the room has stuff scattered all over the place willy-nilly in an anarchist fashion.  Strangely enough, I am one of the neatest people in the hostels I have been in (which isn't the case when I'm at home...I really have too much stuff at home), I don't keep anything on the floor except for my shoes, most of my stuff is in a locker or a storage area, and aside from the occasional bag or item(s) of clothing I leave on my bed (mostly to let newcomers know that my bed is taken), I haven't left much out.

I thought I had lost my only pair of shorts/bathing suit that I had left on my bed to mall my territory, but I found it under a pile of someone else's stuff on the floor. Up until now, nobody has messed worth the stuff on my bed in hostels. My theory is that housekeeping changed the sheets and didn't see my dark shorts. But I have no idea what happened to my toothbrush kit.

Things like this make me realize that along the way I will probably lose stuff or have minor things pilfered. And my trip would probably be doable even if I had most of my stuff gone.

I have been on the top bunk, and my new bunkmate moved in yesterday, scattering his stuff all over the floor, and blocking the ladder to my bunk. I was a bit annoyed by this when I got in yesterday, plus he was sleeping during the day, and when I got in, he woke up and told me to move to another bunk; he said that some guy had moved out and I could take his (in reality, all the bunks were taken). I told him that I was fine where I was.  But I realized later that he was probably talking in his sleep, as I heard him talking a lot while sleeping. When he woke up later that night, he was the nicest guy, we got along really well, and he moved his stuff away from the ladder...he probably had plopped it down, exhausted after traveling, and didn't realize that it blocked my way to bed.

So, I've checked out of the hostel, and here I sit on the sidewalk at the bus stop, eating edamame, and waiting for the bus to arrive in about an hour.

Hiking in Australia's Blue Mountains

Hiking in the Blue Mountains. They are called that because the oil from the eucalyptus trees permeates the air in tiny little droplets, and on really sunny days, when the sun hits it, there is a blue haze. You can definitely smell the eucalyptus and tea tree oil in the air here.

I still have the painful blisters on my feet.  Just going to keep going, it doesn't really matter if it hurts as long as I can still move. But, yup, every step hurts.

We stopped in a couple of towns on the way to the mountains.  First we stopped in Glenbrook, then we stopped in Wentworth Falls briefly.  Then on the way back, we stopped in Katoomba.  I think I only took pictures in Glenbrook.

There were two guys from Austin on the bus to the mountains.  Strange coincidence. There was a woman in my hostel room the other night who had an Austin t-shirt, she told me she had a friend in uni there. I told her my daughter went to uni there too. 

The bus driver/guide, Shane, was very animated, and kept telling us about his mum who would make lunch for us. So we stopped of at his mum's house in the town of Wentworth Falls to pick up the food, and he told us all that mum said hi. I was talking to him later, and he was saying he can't afford a place in Sydney with the inflated prices.  He was saying that a lot of apartments in Sydney were bought by foreign investors who just left them empty to park some money somewhere. I told him that maybe there needed to be massive squats; he said that Australia had recently changed its squatting laws to make it harder to do that. Most working people just can't afford to live in most cities in developed countries any more, and it's a big problem that will probably deflate some day in a catastrophic fashion. 

But I digress. We hiked about a three-hour loop trail, starting with a decent to Empress Falls, and then through the gorgeous valley, with breathtaking views of reddish-orange cliffs, steep and dangerous descents, and misty frequent waterfalls. Then there was a merciless climb up the side of Wentworth Falls to get to the end. 

On the way back,  Shane the bus driver said he always felt he hadn't given people a good time unless everybody was asleep on the way back. I turned around to look, and most people were asleep. So Shane did a good job.