Let us begin documentation of some radical sporting eventry by first paying homage to the sporting event to top all sporting events: the Olympics. If you remember television in Summer 2000, then you remember a shot of the Sydney Opera House, followed by a shot of some sweaty Africans, followed by a shot of tall, buff white guys in itsy bitsy teeny bikinis.
Conveniently, Pat's friend Jason lives right next to Olympic Park. He drove me through it on the way to his house. The Park is empty and eerie, but here's the outside of the main stadium.
And now ladies and gentlemen, may I direct your attention to the center ring for the main event:
MOUNTAIN BIKING!!!
In addition to being a great driver-through-Olympic-Parks, Jason also happens to be good at owning 2 badass bikes. His is a Niner, top o' the line. The one I borrowed was a 2009 Stumpjumper Elite and (dare I say it) I liked it better than the Mokomoko Kona or the Specialized Safire I ride at home (Josie, pick your jaw up off the floor. Some of us will never get to experience the essentialness of S-Works.)
About an hour west of Sydney lies the Blue Mountains, so named for the bluish hue they get when the eucalyptus trees let off some kind of ... errr. .. something. Clearly botany is not one of the Four Tenets of Chemical Engineering. Anyways, we drive to the small mountain town and then ride a train for half an hour up the mountain. This is awesome because that means we get more bang for our buck. And by bang, I mean singletrack. And by buck, I mean $4.80 train fare.
The trail is called Oaks Firetrail. Here is a picture of Not Me riding it. (I have trouble pulling out my camera to take shots of boring firetrail like this; I have trouble stopping my flow to take shots of exciting singeltrack. Wattarya gunna do?)
Ta-Da! A Waterfall of Rocks!
(This one is me)
Some cool black rocks that neither Jason nor I had the geological background to identify. Jackie Liu, please read my blog and tell me why these ones exist at 2000ft when everything else is sand-colored rock.
We had gotten a rather late start and with the sun setting completely by 5:15pm, it was somewhat of a race against time. Jason told me about a little extension trail we could take after the uphill and before the singletrack that would lead us to a great view of the Napean River........ The nappy what? Anyways, I am a Nordrum and so I said 'Yes! Let's cram it all in. I don't care if I have to pedal until my cranks come loose. This is an "and" world, dammit!' Here are the results of that decision: we made it back without riding in the dark, I got to see the Napean River, and these photos:
On the edge of the worrrrrld! More like a rock cliff. About 500m high (1600ft)
I've been to the Grand Canyon, and lemme tell you what: this was not the Grand Canyon. It wasn't nearly as deep and it had trees and mountain biking. Blue Mountains: 1 Grand Canyon: 0
The singletrack part (known as bushwalking trail to Aussies without bikes (known as hiking trail to Americans without balance)) was carved by kangaroos. I'm serious. Really. Jason told me that instead of just whacking down a bunch of bushes, they used the path trodden down by wombats and kangaroos. Here is a picture of a kangroo with a joey. (Hint: it's behind the bushes on the left)
Can't see it? Alright. Here is a picture where that same kangaroo is on the right side of the path, again hidden by bushes.
You still can't see it?!? Well. Maybe that is because this STUPID camera has bad timing. I literally almost ran into one that was crossing the path so I whipped out my camera to take a picture of the next one crossing and got the above shots. I think I may have a career in wildlife portraits. Anyways, I crept up on them so you can see I'm not positively batshit crazy and they really were there and, yes, I really saw kangaroos in the wild before I saw them in a zoo, completely on accident. That's Oz for you.
The rest of our 2-hour bike ride was pleasant; we managed to work our way all the way down to that Nappy River. Here's me impersonating a typical female tourist on a bike (i.e. dressed in yoga pants & top, going slow, not muddy/wet, wearing Steve Madden sunnies).
This rock was SO cool: it was all cavitated out, although I don't think the photo shows this very well.
Mountain biking was a full-day experience: two trains to get to Jason's, an hour drive to the Blue Mountains, a train ride up the mountain, and then the return trip. Not to mention biking. So what do you eat for break-fast when it's 6:30pm and you've had such a day?
Naturally.
(If you don't get it, you haven't been paying attention.)
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