Featherdale/Three Sisters/Giant Stairway

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Dale, Gabbie & a koala

Dale with the black cockatoo

echidna

Add caption

Dagan feeding a wombat.

Sydney touching a tawny frogmouth.

We were off to a wildlife park and the Blue Mountains for a few days.  We stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park first.  The kids wanted Dale and Gabbie to touch/feed a kangaroo.  The animals were really active today.  Most of them were really moving around.  The birds liked Dale.  He would talk to them, and they would follow him down the cage.  It was funny.  We did see a wallaby with a joey.  The baby was very cute.  Dagan has been wanting to touch a wombat, so he tossed his kangaroo food into the wombat cage and reached in quick to get a feel of them.  He said they were soft.  He was tricky because he knows that they can bite.  We also saw two dingo pups.  They acted just like our puppies.  They were super cute.

dingo pup

Sydney loves the kangaroos.

Dale & Gabbie walking
down part of the giant
stairway to the
Three Sisters.

I am a level up from Sydney
on the stairway.

After the animal park, we headed to Katoomba.  We went to the hobbit place for lunch.  Last time we were there, they were closed.  They had changed their name and done some renovations.  We were glad it was open again.  After lunch, we went to see the three sisters.  We noticed you could walk next to them, so we followed the path down.  Part of the pathway is called the giant stairway.  There are supposed to be 900ish steps down to the bottom.  The kids and I wanted to go on it to see what it was like.  All six of us went down the stairs to the bridge to the three sisters.  The steps were really steep.  Dagan continued on down the staircase.  Sydney and I decided to follow him.  We went down a fair distance.  We met Dagan coming back up.  He had made it down to another lookout.  When I asked him if I should continue, he said no.  Sydney went down to the lookout.  Dagan and I asked her to count the steps from the lookout up.  Then the kids counted the steps the rest of the way to the top.  We ended up going up around 475 steps, so we had made it halfway down.  It was rather difficult on the way up.  I was "puffy".  Our new saying for being out of breath.  I decided the only way I would ever really go all the way down the stairs would be if I could walk to Scenic World and catch the train for a ride up the hill.

Sydney, Adam, & Dagan

Sydney & Dagan waiting for me.

After our hike, we traveled to Blackheath where we were going to spend the night.  Gabbie thought our motel should be in the Alps.   The rooms were freezing.  We cranked up the heat and hoped they would warm up before we went to sleep.  We drove quickly through the town to see what was there.  It was rather small.  Our drive didn't take long.  There were a handful of restaurants open, so we found a casual place for dinner.  Thankfully, our rooms were warm by the time we got back and went to bed.