My time in Melbourne was finally up. After breakfast, Jackie, Conor and I transported ourselves to the airport and flew to Sydney. I was glad to have my new Karl Pilkington book, but without realizing it, I almost read the whole thing on our 1 hour flight.
Upon arrival, Jackie and Conor's friend Bernard picked us up. He was and still is a very fine gentleman and I am proud to say he is now my friend too!
From the airport we drove to his house and had lunch with his parents. They were making sandwiches, and they pulled out this huge baguette bread thingy (and I know it's lame, but I've never had any experience with this type of bread thing before). To my great discomfort Bernard hands me the knife and says I can start. Great!! I don't have the best history cutting bread. One time at the Old Spaghetti Factory with Dennis I went to cut the bread and ended up totally squishing it. So my first reaction? I whispered to Jackie, "Which way do I cut this?!?" I can't remember, but either she couldn't understand my mumbling or she said she didn't know. Either way, I decided to go for it and I started to cut the bread into slices. Right away I realized, "This is way too small for sandwiches...now what do I do?!?" And then it dawns on me, how did I not see this before??!?!? All my years of going to Subway and Quiznoes paid off, because I realized, I can cut this into a sub!!!!! And I did, and you know what? So did the rest of the family. Awkwardness averted! (Can you imagine if I had kept cutting little slices?!?)
After lunch we decided to travel to the Blue Mountains. I am very glad we got to go there. If it wasn't for Bernard we wouldn't have been able to get around and about so easily. Cheers Mate!
And here are the Blue Mountains:
Well, the mountains are kinda in the background. But this area was absolutely huge. To me it was kinda like the Grand Canyon filled with trees.
This rock formation is known as the Three Sisters
The Three Sisters & Me
The Three Sisters & Jackie
The Three Sisters & Conor
The Partial Three Sisters & Jackie & Me
I love being a tourist
After looking out into the valley from the main lookout at the top, we decided to brave the stairs. There are stairs that go down into the valley. Long stairs. Stairs of DEATH, in fact.
The Three Brothers in Christ preparing to tackle the stairs of death
On the way down the stairs you get right up to the Three Sisters. The picture above is taken from that vantage point. Can you see the lookout where the previous pics were taken?
That's it way up there!
You'll notice in all these pictures Conor is soooo happy! Something about hiking I think...
Jackie and I were happy at the start of the descent
But our demeanour quickly changed as we realized we were on the stairs of DEATH. Jackie especially was hurting.
At the bottom of the STAIRS OF DEATH there was a sign. I ripped it out of the ground with my bare hands. You can tell I am drenched in sweat by the slicked back hairdo. The worst thing about this trek was this: There is a funky old train car thingy that takes you back to the top, except the last run is at 5pm. We got to the bottom of the steps at 4pm. Some lady at the top told us it takes a couple hours to walk from the base of the steps to the train. Because we wouldn't make it in time, we walked all the way back up those treacherous stairs! Only to discover later...the walk is only about half an hour!!!! Oh well, the fun part of the experience was when I took my shirt off cause the sweat was unbelievable going back up.
I don't think Conor even broke a sweat
So I'm sure you've enjoyed all the lovely pictures in this post. Well, as Jackie is indicating in this photo, I only took 1 photo...and that is this one...and that is because I thought I left my camera at Bernard's house, but I realized on the way home it was in the car the whole time!!!
I took some pictures with Jackie's camera, but she didn't put them on facebook, so I don't know what they look like anymore.
End of Day Nine.
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