This is ski country, and compared to what we in Colorado are used to, it's quite poor. The mountains are not very tall but are very rocky; the season is very short. Once again, it was a realization of how good we have it in Colorado, and the USA.
Perisher Valley - one of Australia's most popular ski areas.
This is the top of Mount Kosciuszko peeking over the horizon.
Along the trail, I got to cross the Snowy River.
3/4 of the way down the trail, a thunderstorm rolled up the valley. It sounded like cannon fire. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, having experienced storms on mountaintops before. I got back to the car just as it hit.
Along the trail were swarms of flies. Not the biting midges so infamous along the coastlines but just annoying, little heat-seekers.
The next best bet was to drive to Thredbo, about 45 minutes away and south of the mountain, and take the ski lift to within an hour of the top. But they weren't allowing anyone up because of the same storm, even though I couldn't see it from this side. (By the way, the corrugated iron roof is once again seen here, as it is a very popular material in Australia.)
The ski runs.
After camping out for two days, I drove north to the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. This was really hilly country, as this next picture shows.
On the way there, I went through Cowra, the sight of a prisoner of war camp during WWII. Besides Japanese soldiers, which other POW's were held there? Nope - not Germans. Italians. After the war, many of the Japanese settled in this region. This camp was the site of the largest Japanese prisoner breakout attempt of the war, and possibly in history. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowra) After the ensuing battle, the Japanese dead were buried nearby, the cemetery eventually being ceded to Japan as a gesture of peace. Japan was so moved by this that an offer was made to construct a Japanese Garden in the community. The result was the largest such garden in the Southern Hemisphere. In recognition of this relationship, Cowra was designated as the home for a replica of the UN Peace Bell - an honor usually given to a nation's capital.
Echo Point and The Three Sisters, just outside of the resort town of Katoomba.
The Jamison Valley.
The platform cantilevered out over the cliff - something I didn't realize until I got there. Not real comfortable, this view!
What a sense of history.
At the opposite end of the Jamison Valley is another landmark famous in Australia - Scenic World. "... a tourist complex in the southwest of the town. This site is home to the steepest funicular railway in the world, the Katoomba Scenic Railway, which was originally built to facilitate coal and oil shale mining in the Jamison Valley. Scenic World also offers the Scenic Skyway cable car, which travels over an arm of the Jamison Valley and offers views of Katoomba Falls and Orphan Rock. In 2004 the original Skyway car was replaced by a new car with a liquid crystal panel floor, which abruptly becomes transparent while the car travels. In 1983 construction began at the site on a rollercoaster called the Orphan Rocker; the track was completed, but this attraction has never been opened to the public." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_%28Australia%29)
Cowra was my first experience with back-in parking. For someone not very used to left-hand driving in the first place, this was a fun challenge.
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