In the Fog in the Blue Mountains

Just west of Sydney is a place so celebrated it is on the World Heritage shortlist of natural wonders. It is so celebrated that this last week a seventh grader half a world away came to my reference desk wanting to write a report about it.

What is it? Named the Blue Mountains, it has no mountains and during our visit was more white than blue. The gorges, ravines, precipices, waterfalls are not the result of piled granite plates wearing down, but from the erosion of tipped table land, so that it seems more of a diminutive, greener Grand Canyon, and it is lovely.

Susie and I settled into a small town called Blackheath for a few days to explore the canyons. The first day we hiked the most famous trail at Echo Point, the one that loops around the Three Sisters, pillars of rusty rock.  There is an aboriginal tale about marriageable daughters and war that I didn't quite catch attached to it. It could be the Three Spinsters, or the Three Amazons.
The trail descends steeply into the canyon, runs the ravines for a few miles, then climbs sweatily back out. It is decent first day workout. We did the circuit, admired the views and the fact that we had any breath left, then went for beer.
The next day brought fog.  It was less fog than windjammers of cloud sailing down the road.  They sailed in midmorning, dropped anchor and stayed.   But a bit of murk wasn't going to change our plans.  We marched off briskly in the direction of a reportedly spectacular lookout called Govett's Leap and another called Pulpit Rock. (Where perhaps Govett's funeral sermon was delivered). We expected the clouds to lift at any time. They never did.

It was like pushing through cotton. The lookouts were all blank.  We would stand at the precipice, and look and look, and peer and squint. Nothing. Nothing but swirling white.  Directly below, a few hundred feet down, we see for a moment the outline of a tree clinging to the cliff, and nothing below. Nothing but slow swirling, almost palpable white.  We were in the clouds. It made the canyons before us more immense and surreal because we had to imagine them. It felt strange, like the waiting room to Heaven. We expected St. Peter to step out of the mist.

After hours of trails along the precipices with no views, we turned inland and came across a rocky waterfall with a pool below.  Since we had encountered no other hikers all day we knew we had the place to ourselves. Feeling in need of refreshment we decided to take a swim and damn the water snakes.  No sooner had we stripped to our undies and jumped in, than a party of Hollanders, an student and his prim parents, arrived at the pool, stopped and gawked.  We stuttered out an insincere welcome and exchanged talk about the weather. We may have invited them to join us.  They departed quickly.
That night back in the tiny rustic town of Blackheath we had Parisian dining experience, three courses of things I couldn't spell, pronounce or imagine. Spare yes in the inimitable French way, but gorgeously tasty.

We were served by a memorable waiter, 'Cyril', who uttered his words so deliberately, so carefully, he might have been confectioner squeezing out curls of frosting. As he spoke, he held his right arm behind him, like a half folded wing, and made us laugh.

The next day the clouds moved on. We headed back to the canyons to see what we could see.

Wine a Little. You'll Feel Better

North of Sydney are the rolling hills of the Hunter Valley.  It is a place known to the outside world for an odd pair economic engines, coal mines and wineries.  In my two and a half days in the area, I saw no mines, but waves and waves of vineyards and billboards calling us to sample the wares of the Three Blind Sheep or the Kalloonballa Hill winery.

Since it was close to our lodge at Elfin Hill Country Accommodation, we started the day at the McWilliams Mount Pleasant Winery, in the capable hands of cellar door master Brian Collins.  Because of his air of authority, we took him for the owner, stopping in for a little elbow rubbing with the customers. Generously, he offered us a tour of the facilities. I learned more about wine than I could remember for five minutes. However, I did learn that you age a merlot in an American oak cask for its courser flavor, whereas you would age a subtler wine, such as chardonnay, in French oak. Figures, doesn't it?
My ability to taste the differences in wine is right up there with my ability to conjugate Finnish verbs.  But I would be willing to study. Mr. Collins started us with the lightest, the verdelhos, and worked our way through the semillons, the chardonnays toward the coarsely aged shirazzes and merlots.  He was a generous and ready pourer, detailing as he went the wonders of each new bottle.
 My head fogged, my palate went to sleep, but my appreciation of his stories became more enthusiastic.  He was, not the owner, but almost as good, the retired principal of a local primary school with a taste for good vintages. He had run his school with a sense of fun, as we learned later from the testimonials of his former students.

A zealous fan of the Rabittohs, a Rugby League team his students had never heard of, he nonetheless put on rabbit ears and led the students in rugby Rabbitoh cheers at the school assemblies.  He described himself as a "Rabbitohs tragic".  I think that is Australian for dedication to a team that doesn't win very often.  We could use it in Michigan.
Warmed by the wine, I turned to our neighbors at the bar, who, it turned out, were from Finland and in the middle of a two year odyssey around the world, in particular Australia and New Zealand.  Joni is an environmental engineer and Heli is a physical therapist.  They support themselves with whatever work comes to hand, even harvesting grapes or zucchini, and thriftily tour the warmer parts of  the world while waiting out the recession in Finland.  They wonder how hard it will be to return to a country where in the winter you need a flashlight at noon to find your way.
We exchanged information and Susie invited them to stop by when they got to Sydney.

It was a lovely time, but we needed to head back to the Elf for a nap.