The JaYmes Escape

I crawl out of bed after an impromptu mexican themed night with Tequila, Old El Paso and Sangria, get the shorts out and catch the ferry to Manly for a day in the hot spring sun.

My psyche is still having trouble with the concept that it’s September and early spring. Sydney’s midwinter climate feels like a cold summer to an Englishman so the idea that it’s now getting hotter is confusing as well as appealing. Spring certainly does seem to be in the air now; the last week or so has been noticeably warmer and I’m sure by the end of the month my coat will be relegated to the bottom of my rucksack.

South Head is on the South side of the entrance to Sydney Harbour from the Pacific. Watson’s Bay, on the harbour side of South Head, is home to private yachts, expensive homes, fish restaurants and amazing sunsets. Pictures from my Watson’s Bay and South Head trip are now in the gallery.

In every city I’ve visited people complain about similar things; the roads are too busy, the trains are late, prices are high and the streets are dirty. You’d think then that these issues are as insurmountable as they are universal, and yet not all cities are alike. Some, like London and St Petersburg, have particular issues with the capacity of their public transport, and the rush hour traffic on the motorways in Auckland is bad enough to give LA a run for it’s money; even the M25 isn’t as bad.

It’s hard to find anything really dysfunctional about Sydney though; yes, the roads are busy but I’ve yet to see a real LA or Auckland-style jam. For sure, the trains run a bit late, but I’ve never seen one as crowded as the Victoria Line. The streets are a bit grubby but spotless compared to Nevsky Prospekt, or even Leicester Square, and prices aren’t the cheapest, but it’s not Tokyo or Helsinki. No city is a perfect machine, but Sydney seems to work better than most.

In Scotland and Wales, Central Europe and New Zealand, a mountain is a large conical-ish object with a pointed summit often topped by a cap of snow. In the great dividing range of Eastern Australia however, the Blue Mountains are not quite the shape or the colour that an international traveller expects them to be. This is not a tectonic crumple zone; these ‘mountains’ are formed by gentle erosion of sandstone over millions of years. They are characterised by sheer brown cliffs and deep tree-covered canyons that are home to some of the most remarkable and unusual species on the planet. The name comes from the blue haze that appears because the sun’s rays bounce off the oil droplets produced by indegenous trees such as the eucalypts.

After three days hiking around my legs ache and I’m absolutely shattered. I’ve mixed with the crowds of tourists in the most popular spots and ridden what claims to be the steepest passenger railway in the world, but I’ve also managed to veer away from the beaten track and traverse paths that are no more than horizontal crevices half way up cliffs, seeing first hand some of the wierd and wonderful flaura and fauna that evolved whilst Australia was still isolated from the rest of the world.

Pictures are now online.