Royal National Park

Hello from NSW.  I am on the first of my trips to National Parks around Australia. This time I am visiting the Royal National Park, near Sydney, and the Blue Mountains National Park (and I will be based in Katoomba). I travelled from Bright to Sydney by bus and train and as you can probably guess that was an adventure in itself....

Getting to Sydney

Well the first thing I noticed while waiting at Wangaratta station was that they appear to be operating a metal recycling company out of their store room. First I noticed a whole lot of shopping trolleys in there, then someone came out with a wheel barrow full of crushed aluminium cans. The train trip to Sydney was relatively uneventful, apart from the train being 1.5 hours late, and the tourists in front of me constantly making their DIY meals and applying hand cream.

When I finally got to Sydney I had trouble finding my way out of Central station (the station is huge, on multi levels), then when I got to the hotel a Chinese family (or rather entourage, as there was so many of them) were negotiating a room at 10pm, at the Y Hotel (which is nothing more than an expensive hostel) - I think they thought they were in a strong negotiating position, I suspect the person behind the counter would have loved them to walk out the door.

Interesting People

I caught the local train to get to the Royal National Park, the trains are really good but you get to see some interesting people...

One day on the way back I was sitting at a station when someone came up to me, standing, and plonked their bag next to me. Why, I thought - as there was a whole station platform to stand on - there was only about 5 people on the platform. Well the reason was because he wanted to talk - out of the blue he asked me about how I use my walking poles. That's a question I was not expecting. It's like asking someone how that breathing thing works. Then he started going on about his friend who has a wrecked knee and rattled out some medical terms. It turns out he is a fitness student (but he looked at least 30) and he had all the hallmarks of an interesting person: he was wearing lycra shorts  and was wearing way too many wrist bands on one hand. Then he asked about my walking socks - luckily then the train came and I let him go in front of me, he went on the top storey and I went below - I love those double decker trains. 

On another trip a mother thought it was really important to discuss loudly, with her child, their underwear requirements., then she decided to talk about her counselling sessions to the child - as she was getting off her mother rang her but she could only speak to her on loudspeaker because her phone was broken. I really felt for the poor child.

But the best one was the character I saw, wearing long shorts and bright runners, at Central station who carefully stepped over the ticket barrier (as he was quite short), then he went up to one of the CCTV cameras and waived his umbrella in front of it. Obviously an anarchist.

Chinese

I think they are targeting me. Sydney is full of Chinese tourists and I think one of their main missions appears to be to irritate me. They cross in front of me on the footpath, they block me on the footpath. I even found a whole lot of them playing Chinese music outside my room at the hotel when I came back, I don't know who they were.

Anyway some pictures from the Royal National Park...