Up in the Clouds

We awoke the next morning to an extremely busy parking lot bustling with people and traffic. I got up first, which happened quite a lot on this trip, and went to investigate a bathroom in the cool organic store. For a rest stop store it was super awesome with everything very eco friendly and lots of healthy food. I bought a fruit cup because I felt fruit deprived from being so poor and it tasted so good! Once we got as put together as one can hope to be after sleeping in a car park, we got on the road again and headed for the Blue Mountains. We had been told that the Blue Mountains were beautiful to drive through and that we were pretty much guaranteed to see wildlife. Not only did we end up having to drive through tolls but we more or less had to go to Sydney and then an hour and a half away from Sydney a different direction because of our impatience the night before. If we would have taken the time to place our route properly we would have known which town to head towards that would have taken around Sydney first and then looped us back. No such luck.

As we drove we were in pretty good spirits because we had slept. It is amazing what sleep can do when you have been in a car for a million hours too long. We also knew that this part of the trip wasn't going to take very long. As we started the climb into the mountains I will admit it was beautiful. As first. However, the further up we got the fog began to close in around us. We nearly ran out of petrol and didn’t realize it until we had passed all the towns so we just had our fingers crossed we would make it to the next big town. I should clarify here that driving through the mountains in Australia was not like driving through the mountains in Washington. While it was pretty, it was more reminiscent of driving through the mountains in California on I-5. Lots of big red rock structures and drop offs but less of the giant trees and towering...MOUNTAINS. So, we continued to drive for another hour and once we got petrol we decided to follow one of the signs in that town to a waterfall. This is where the fog became ridiculous. I was driving at this point and literally you could not see 10 feet in front of you. We couldn't even see the signs of where to follow to get to the trail head and once there you could barely see the cars in the parking lot. We got out anyways, very much like any Washingtonian would. We got out and pretended like we were going to actually hike this trail in complete fog. We got to the lookout and yup, boy was it a beautiful cloud. You couldn't see a single thing. You could hear the waterfall but that was it. I have a picture so I can remember that foggy view. I also took a picture of the sign so we could remember what it should have looked like. We were troopers though, and walked to the second lookout just to see if maybe it got a little better and to stretch our legs. No luck. We laughed about it because really what else are you supposed to do? I made a couple stupid comments that Makenna has cataloged as “stupid things Thea says” that was something about the fact that it was hard to see where we were going because I had cloud in my eyes. In my defense, I said it trying to articulate that the condensation in the air was making me blink a lot!

Once we gave in and went back to the car, we decided to keep driving to our initial destination which was Katoomba. A town that is the heart of the Blue Mountains and where you normally can see the Three Sisters Peak. The town itself was actually pretty stinking cute. I mean what we could see of it through all the fog. We drove around a bit and decided we were starving and didn’t have any money so I found a random side street to pull off and park so we could open up the back and made some lunch. There were a few of these moments in our trip where I really did feel like a homeless person and was just waiting for someone to yell at us for parking in front of their house to cook some quality two minute noodles (top ramen).

Unfortunately, this point in our trip quickly turned into the most depressing hour we had experienced. We checked our bank accounts... Now anyone who has traveled knows that money is tight and that you sacrifice things along the way to save. We had been doing really well until we realized we were two days away from flying out and A. Makenna knew nothing about her flight and B. we had very very little money. The issue that started this downward spiral was realizing that Kenna didn’t know how much paying for an extra bag on the plane would cost her and she literally had that much money left. Her parents were out of town camping in Canada and my dad wouldn't answer the phone so we just sat there for a good while back and forth saying “I don’t know what to do”. We were stuck. We had to return the van the next day so we didn’t have anywhere to sleep, we had very very little money left, one hotspot ran out of data and mine was pretty close, and we were in the mountains and couldn't see a damn thing. The original plan had been to camp in the mountains but as we sat there we realized that was pointless. Also, Makenna described the foggy cold weather the best, it was like a Halloween day. It really did feel like a Washington October. We got a bit delusional there for a bit and played Heads Up, which is the fun phone game that Ellen DeGeneres came up with, until the phone got too low on battery. (we didn’t have a way to charge any I-products in the van).

We sat there a long time. I say an hour but I truly have no clue how long we sat in our van, on this side street, just pondering. Sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, sometimes grumbling into our hands... Either way, time passed and eventually we had to make a decision. Together we agreed that staying in the mountains was pointless on a couple levels so we decided to just turn around and head back towards Sydney where we figured we would just find somewhere to park for the night. One thing we did accomplish while sitting there was we found the cheapest hostel on hostelworld and booked it for two nights for the both of us with my credit card. That way we knew we at least had somewhere to sleep and hostelworld only makes you pay 10% of your booking upfront.