Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!

Since arriving in Australia, Sunday has become my favorite day of the week. With a $2.70 cap on my Opal Card charges, I can travel hours around outside of Sydney, on buses, trains, light rail and ferries, for less than it costs me to buy an avocado.

For the past few weeks, I have been motivated by this perk to travel to Sydney Central (week 1), Turramurra and Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park (week 3), Manly Beach (week 4), and now, for my fifth Sunday here, Katoomba and the Blue Mountains.

From the second that I landed in Sydney, every local that I met has mentioned something about the Blue Mountains being a “must-see” during my time here. For the first few weeks, as a newbie to the New South Wales transport system, the 2.5 hour bus/train ride daunted me. I never thought that I would make it out there and back in one piece.

By the time I had returned from surf camp, I had acclimated enough to public transportation that I felt ready to take the trip; if only the weather would hold up. For weeks three and four, despite passable weather in Sydney, Katoomba, one of the major towns covered by Blue Mountains National Park, was threatened by rain, not ideal weather for the “beautiful views” that I had been promised.

I had begun to worry that I would never make it out there before heading back home, with many other weekend plans in the works, but, fortunately, week five showed blue skies ahead!

With a 6:30 AM departure from Leonard Avenue, my friend, Karishma (an exchange student from ASU) and I settled in for the journey to Katoomba. The rails were under construction, so with a small delay, we arrived in the quaint downtown area around 10:30, snacks almost gone and ready to begin our adventure.

We made a friend!

With the help of a map that my housemate Britt kindly lent us, we traversed over 8.5 miles of the Prince Henry Cliff Walk, climbing over 95 flights of stairs to see every landmark and lookout point in the area.

The Five Sisters 😉

Our sights included the Three Sisters, a rock formation with three distinct pillars. According to an Aboriginal legend, three sisters, Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo, members of the Katoomba tribe, once fell in love with three brothers of a tribe with which they were not allowed to marry. Powered by love, the brothers captured the sisters and started a battle between the tribes, placing the sisters in severe danger. In order to protect the sisters, a Katoomba witch doctor turned the sisters to stone, planning to reverse the spell once the fighting had ended; however, he was soon killed himself, leaving the spell “set in stone” (no pun intended).

If you plan on visiting this beautiful sight for yourself and don’t have much patience for crowds, I recommend not going on a Sunday; our smiles are hiding our intense fear of being stampeded by the many people waiting behind the camera to take their own selfies.

Leura Falls

Eventually making our way out of the bush, Karishma and I arrived in Leura, a quaint town almost as cute as Katoomba. We took a short time to window shop and grab a quick snack, but after a long day of travelling, we were ready for the journey home.

As I mentioned before, Sunday is my new favorite day of the week, and this week, I was able to celebrate Sunday TWICE with Super Bowl LIII airing at 10:30 on a Monday morning!

Every bar within three miles of Sydney had been advertising raucous viewing parties with “American” food (hot dogs, chicken and waffles, tater tots, etc.) and games almost since I had arrived in Australia. Yet, as Emily and I biked our way to The Pontoon Bar in Darling Harbour at 10 AM, we were not surprised at the amount of empty barstools and deserted pubs that we saw. It’s called “American” football for a reason!

Australian Tim, Emily, and I

Fortunately, the venue that we were attending was a different story: hundreds of “fans” that had only just recently heard of the NFL had come out for fun and some good old American football. Most of them claimed to be Rams fans (Australians are known to root for the underdog), but by the time the fourth quarter had rolled around, I had convinced most of them that they were rooting for the wrong team.

With the celebrations out of the way and a final exam on Saturday, I dedicated the rest of my week to a bit of studying and a lot of procrastinating, mostly through cooking, cleaning, and planning for my New Zealand departure on Sunday; yet another reason to love Sundays!

My next update will probably be delayed until after my return on Sunday the 17th, but meanwhile, check out my “New Zealand” page, where I will be uploading photos regularly during my adventure with Emily.