Keen to get Butch on the open road and already impressed by his ability to climb mountains, I started driving West (and forgot my Etag so had to turn around at Five Dock and start all over again! Sunday is not a good day for brain function.) As much as I love a road trip with friends, I do most of my long distance driving alone- it may sound strange, but I find you meet more people when you're not travelling with a support crew :)
Climbing the mountains was no issue for Butch. But I was amazed at how much the roads had changed, not only had it become 4 lanes most of the way, but the number of shops, houses and people was positively suburban! Maybe it's my age, and the fact that I moved away from Sydney for almost 7 years, but I'm still astounded that places like Springwood and (on the other way through the mountains) Windsor are now considered suburbs of Sydney when they were once out-of-the way stops with a single memorable pie/fruit shop on the way to other destinations.
First stop- Leura Mall. Home of the best lolly shop EVER. This is where I discovered "UFOs" These weird sweets that are made out of this stuff that looks like Polystyrene, melts in your mouth and have sherbet in the middle. Eating them is a bit of a ritual... and i'd have a photo but they didn't make it to the car... D'oh!
While I was there, there were adults acting like kids (sneaking lollies! Naughty naughty!... I saw you!), and kids walking the door and exclaiming things like "Whoa! Just like Wonka!" and really, short of the river of chocolate and the oompa loompas... it kinda still IS like that! I also discovered this trip that Leura has an adult version of the lolly shop- not one, but TWO shops dedicated to Belgian Chocolate. I'm glad I wasn't staying two weeks this time, i'd have left double the size! Unfortunately, there are no photos of the chocolate shop... i'm ashamed to say that my hands were too full of what i'd purchased! Oops..
Leura's population, along with most other places in the Blue Mountains had grown considerably in the last 18 years so my efforts to find the house we'd stayed in were in vain. So i took Cliff drive (the scenic route) to Katoomba. Around a few bends, was Leura Cascades. Butch was parked next to some gorgeous little falls but apparently the REAL show was a 40 min round trip down a track. No time for that- adventuring to be done! and I wanted to include Butch!
The thing about Cliff Drive was that just about every break in the trees gave you the most SPECTACULAR views. At first, I thought "I wont stop, if there was a REAL view here, they'd have put a lookout.." but they'd have to put them about every 30 metres if that were the case! No joke.. Cliff drive winds around the mountain face and is very narrow. Butch impressed me yet again by having the power of a huge car but being small enough to sneek past others. Nice. The big engine also means that when you coast down hills, the gears hold you back so you don't have to ride the brakes. Something you don't see often in smaller automatic cars... makes it harder to speed accidentally too- very handy with public holidays and double demerits coming up!
Next stop, Katoomba Scenic World. Home of the Scenic railway (which you ride down a cliff face on an angle that makes you feel like you're doing it feet first!) and the scenic skyway (a cable car which goes out between the mountains- not recommended if you don't like heights!) I've been on these a few times- school excursions, with family etc. but the place had had a massive facelift since the last time I was here! They'd even replaced the old skyway cars and put one near the entrance to the (also new) parking station. There's a photo on my Granny's fridge to this day of me in one of those old cars- rugged up in a fetching purple parka and with really bad 80s hair. Memories...
(Ok, so these are statues of the 3 sisters and the witchdoctor who turned them to stone... a new addition since my last visit in... 1998?)
Scenic world was closing down for the day so I continued on towards Katoomba via Echo Point- the best views of the Three Sisters. As I pulled into the parking spot, there were a group of people in matching t-shirts and one guy crouched down on the ground in the gutter in front of them. I waited paitently, giggling a little because he either hadn't heard Butch creep up behind him or he didn't care. One of the guys stepped out of the group and guided me in, stopping me just before I hit his friend (now that's trust!) I got out of the car and realised that the guy who was crouched down was setting up a photo (I'd been doing the same thing all day- it's hard to get photos of yourself when you're travelling alone!) so I offered to take a photo for them if they took one of me. Their signature photo must have been a mid-air shot with them all jumping as the photo was taken. I got talking to them and discovered they're a circus troupe. They do tricks on a slackrope (as opposed to a tightrope) and are touring the country in the next couple of months.
http://www.gibbon-slacklines.com if you're interested! So we had a group photo- I tried to tell them that the jump was a Toyota and not a Ford thing! But they're very attached to it! :D
They also checked out Butch and were pretty impressed! He even got in on the balancing act! I said my goodbyes and headed down the hill to look at the view and... wait a second... Butch is parked behind me! It was another Fwd: a Ford Focus driving away! Spooky...
It wasn't the best day for long-distance viewing from Echo Point. But the heavy-duty mist was just far enough away that the Three Sisters were perfect for viewing still. And someone had obviously decided that painting wasn't out of the question. I felt very lazy taking photos... If I had the time and talent, i'd probably give painting a go too.
By this stage, I was in search of food and another childhood memory- specifically, the Paragon cafe on Katoomba's main street. We ate here a few times on our stay in Leura. I have memories of it being this grand 1920s style cafe/restaurant with booths and lots of mirrors and a grand fascade out on the street... it was still there but nothing like I remember. It was looking a little tired and old and SO much smaller! (Maybe when I was smaller, it looked bigger.) Unfortunatley, it was closed but I peeked in through the glass and the decor inside looked the part still... I was really looking forward to that chocolate sundae too!
As you can see from the photos, chasing the sun hadn't really worked and it was FREEZING in the mountains. I'd got the idea of having a bowl of soup from a sign outside a cafe in Leura so it was top of my wishlist and lo and behold...
A place that only sells soup? Would you believe the girl behind the counter gets asked that countless times a day- for the record, they have a few other options but it's all about the soup!My wish was granted! So I sat down with Betty Boop for some Soup... oh, that rhymes... I wonder if they meant it that way! I quizzed the girl who served me about whether she ever gets called the Soup Nazi (not to her face but she hears mumblings from customers amongst themselves occasionally- plus, she's particularly un-nazi like. No little black moustache or anything...) and why only soup (the chef got jack of everyone trying to change things on his menu when they ordered... soup can't be altered! You either like it or you don't! Suck it up!... 'scuse the pun).
The Carrington hotel was across the road from the Soup shop. Katoomba used to be known for it's luxurious hotels, two of which had pretty much been run into the ground in recent years but the Carrington was still there. Random childhood memory #427 The first time we stayed in Leura Mum saying "The Hydro Majestic is a very expensive hotel, and don't ever get any ideas about staying there, we're not rich enough." I was dared by the girl in the Soup shop to park in the driveway for a photo so that's what I did... I felt completely at ease driving my sleek Focus up the driveway of a posh hotel. Admittedly, no one was there to try to take the keys from me... but i'm not sure it would have been easy to part with them!
Somehow it was 7pm and the day had gotten away from me. Despite being quite suburban, the Blue Mountains had been closing up shop for hours so I decided it was time to head home. One thing that caught my eye on the drive was the Norman Lindsay Gallery at Faulconbridge so I took a little detour on the way home to see what I could see. Norman Lindsay wrote and illustrated some of my favourite Australian books like The Magic Pudding- and with Christmas coming up, pudding is on my mind! The gallery was closed of course, but the street signs around it were the BEST! Watkin Wombat Way, Uncle Wattleberry Cres, Magic Pudding Pl, and Bill Barnacle Ave. I wanna move in! I'll at least put the Gallery on the To-Do list for another time...
The random reference made to bats in the title of this post wasn't implying that i'd gone on some Dr. Gonzo-esque acid road-trip into the Wild West (they went East anyway) to find the Australian dream... there WERE actually bats flying with me as I drove down the M7 home. I've watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a couple of times recently and the quote popped into my head. It appears that the Blue Mountains is where many people have found their Australian dream though- a house and a block of land... spectacular views are a bonus.
