{"id":866,"date":"2016-11-04T11:54:42","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T11:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/?p=866"},"modified":"2016-11-10T12:06:12","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T12:06:12","slug":"41116-katoomba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/travel\/41116-katoomba\/","title":{"rendered":"4\/11\/16 Katoomba"},"content":{"rendered":"

We get up and get sorted and leave Katoomba and head down the street to the National Park.<\/p>\n

This is literally at the bottom of the street and we try to get directions to the Funicular railway. Well no matter what we call it we still get directed to the Skypark.<\/p>\n

So that is where we go.<\/p>\n

The Skypark is a well organised, manufactured for tourists and an easy way to see the local National Park.<\/p>\n

It is organised so you can dip in, dip out and tailor your experience e to the amount of time you have available.<\/p>\n

Normally I would say it is much to touristy but it actually works very well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

First we bought out ticket.<\/p>\n

It costs 1 dollar more for an all day ticket which includes everything rather than a single journey.<\/p>\n

We first take the skyway over the gorge to the other side and see the three sisters. That is the three peaks they call\u00a0Meehni (922\u00a0m), Wimlah (918\u00a0m), and Gunnedoo (906\u00a0m). \u00a0they dominate one side of the Jameson Valley.<\/p>\n

The Skyway goes past the Katoomba Falls which we were told was the second highest in either Queensland or Australia.<\/p>\n

Either way I doubt it but it is a pleasant walk down to the foot of them.<\/p>\n

Once you exit the Skyway you can walk out to the Three Sisters ( about 30 minutes) or walk back around the top of the falls to your starting point.<\/p>\n

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That is what we did and then took the Skytrain down to the valley floor.<\/p>\n

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from there there is a very good nature walk around the base of edge of the valley to the bottom of the railway.<\/p>\n

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The Sassafras trees touch and rub against each other.<\/p>\n

The two above are locked in an embrace as the protective tissue of each has joined them together.<\/p>\n

The trees continue to grow, sharing sap and supporting each other.<\/p>\n

Apparently they are known locally as ‘kissing trees’.<\/p>\n

I suggested to Maggie it was just like me and her but she wasn’t entirely convinced.<\/p>\n

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Anyway, the railway is originally to bring coal up to the cliff top from the mine which was burrowed in from the bottom.<\/p>\n

It dates from the 1880;s and ceased production around 1930.<\/p>\n

At its height it shipped about 20,000 tons a year.<\/p>\n

Now they have made a rail link dubbed the steepest railway in the world\u00a0to bring tourists back up.<\/p>\n

It is part rail part theme park ride but it rounded of the trip nicely.<\/p>\n

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\"dsc03490\"From there it was back into Sydney and chill on the beach before getting the plane to Cairns.<\/p>\n

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We get up and get sorted and leave Katoomba and head down the street to the National Park. This is literally at the bottom of the street and we try to get directions to the Funicular railway. Well no matter what we call it we still get directed to the Skypark. So that is where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}