As brave as a 12 year old girl
So skip now to last week. Spring is here with a vengeance, and Sydney is a pleasant place to be, but I'm running out of things to gawp at, and I'm giving serious consideration to moving south. My original plan to remain in the area til New Year was always a flexible one, and lately I have been inundated with suggestions of other places to visit. Tasmania, never part of the itinerary, is sounding very tempting. Anyway, someone mentions that the temperature will soon hit, and probably pass, 30 degrees, and that's too much for me, if I can avoid it. I remember that yes, I can avoid it, because it's usually 5 or 6 degrees cooler in the mountains, so off I go.
No longer having access to a car or a chauffeur, train is the only option. The railway follows the highway, running right beside it for much of the way. I head to the station round the corner and am pleasantly surprised at how cheap the ticket is. I suppose in a country this vast, Katoomba is really just up the road. I get to Central Station without a hitch, but then, presumably in an attempt to make me feel at home, I am helpfully informed there are trackworks all weekend, so I embark onto a coach (so they say, it's a bus by my standards). The coach sets out to negotiate the mid-morning traffic, and we eventually arrive at Penrith, last gasp of urban sprawl before the ground rears up steeply before us. I transfer to a train, and await the scenic journey to my final destination. And wait. And wait some more.
Okay, a bus holds fewer passengers than a train, so I can't fault their logic, but we have to wait for at least one more busload to arrive before we set off. Not that the train is an unpleasant place to while away the time. It's a double-decker, still a novel thing for me, for I've never gone by rail outside the UK. When I think of the uncomfortable hours spent crowded into a British commuter train, standing room only, if you're lucky, it astounds me that Branson doesn't invest in some of these. The carriages are old, but they're well kept. I'm reminded of a cheap caravan interior, lots of faux-pine veneer everywhere, and the seats are worn green leather. They're cleverly designed too. You can flip the chair backs to face the other way, so you always get the seat you want.
Once we were finally underway, the trip was a good one, clear blue skies all the way, sunshine through eucalyptus leaves, and the occasional panorama out over the plains to the ocean. I arrived relaxed and comfortable, but due to the delays much later than expected, so I headed directly to the hostel, which was colourful, comfortable, but empty. I was let in by a random guest, and as I waited for the owner to arrive, my eyes wandered around the large loungeroom, looking for something to occupy myself. A large, nearly completed jigsaw held my attention for five minutes. The bookshelf of tattered, well loved volumes, mostly in German for some reason, occupied another five. The TV was a non-starter - Australian mid-afternoon programming is dire. Eventually, my attention was drawn to the large blackboard in the corner.
'Welcome to the Flying Fox.' Well that's a good start. I'm in the right hostel and the walls are friendly.
'Mountain Biking - $28!' Not really me. Bikes are not my ally.
'Horse riding!' More tempting, but I've done it before, and if you're not that experienced, you get an old docile nag that won't go faster than a walk. If I ride anything here it'll be a camel.
'Abseiling!' Nah, far too dangerous. I'm such a big chicken - I'm not proud of that, but I can't deny it. But...and that's where these tales usually begin, that ominous 'but'. But, I'm here for an adventure after all, alone, far from home, looking for new experiences. So when the manager, Ross, finally arrives, I ask him about abseiling. Noncommittally, of course. Enthusiastically, he tells me he knows the best adventure tours in town, he'll ring round a few options in the morning if I'd like. Fantastic! I get to sleep on it. Plenty of time to be sensible and back out. Maybe he'll forget all about it.
But the more I think about it, the more I'd like to give it a try, and after breakfast next morning, I ask again. Ross makes a few calls, gets a few quotes. But it's still not main tourist season yet, tours only run if enough people want them. The best offer is only a half day excursion. There is another option though, same price as abseiling, a whole day adventure. Canyoning. Sounds intriguing. Clambering over rocks in a deep gorge, swimming through freezing mountain streams. Abseiling down waterfalls. Obviously the mountain air, combined with the now apparent lack of anything to do in town, had piqued my sense of adventure.
An hour later and I'm standing on top of a three metre outcrop, trussed up like a Christmas turkey. It sure looks a lot higher than it did from the bottom. Luckily, I'm not the only one having reservations. Martin (Irish, a rock-hopping virgin like me) and I offer Marie (Danish, slightly experienced, but still terrified) moral support as she leans back over the edge, and disappears from view. Then it's my turn. Dave, our intrepid guide, shows me how to hook the rope to my harness, and over I go. I'm terrified. Probably more terrified of messing it up and looking a fool than falling and injuring myself. Dave has attached a safety line onto me, so I know I'm not going to crash into the path below. But leaning back over the edge, letting your centre of gravity drop into empty void is a disconcerting experience.
Once you're over, it's not so bad. The only option is down, and the speed of your descent is entirely in your own hands, literally. I'm sure it takes me twice as long as Marie to get to the bottom, it's a slow, painstaking descent, but Dave seems satisfied. Martin goes last. He's keen to get down as fast as possible, and there's a lack of control that is obviously giving Dave some concern. It's good not to be the class dunce. Anyway, we each try a second descent, and Dave thinks we're all ready to move to the next stage.
Drop two is about 10 metres. Funny thing is, I can't remember much about it. The brain can probably process so much in a day, and my dreams that night were preoccupied with the higher descents that followed. I think I went first this time. I was told I was brave to volunteer, but to be honest, it's best to get it over with, and I didn't want the others imparting tales of dread before it was my turn. All I knew going over was that there would be an overhang a few metres down.
Once again, going over the edge is the hardest part. After all, why leave a perfectly solid cliff edge if you don't have to. I made a point of not looking down, and walked my feet carefully down the cliff. Fairly soon my feet were on the edge of the overhang. Dave's advice had been to plant my toes firmly on the lip, lower my body til nearly horizontal, then push out and drop a few metres. There was quite a bit of room here for error. Push off when you're too upright and your chin will swing back to greet the rocky edge. Lower yourself too far with your feet still on the rock, and there's a risk of ending upside down. Not only is this not a dignified way to descend, but if the harness, (which is rather like those baby walkers you bounce around in as a tot) isn't tight enough, out you'll come.
Luckily my harness was tight, of that I had made specially sure. In fact, it was damn uncomfortable, my whole body weight pressing down on some pretty sensitive areas, but I was secure. And Dave's advice worked a treat. Suddenly I was hanging in midair, still about seven metres up, the cliffside quite a distance away. Now some people apparently find this disconcerting, they find the presence of a nearby cliff somehow comforting - land is land, even if it is vertical. Me, I liked hanging there, slowly rotating as I lowered myself. The absence of nearby cliff was just one less thing to worry about. I actually found myself looking about to admire the view. It was a pretty good one too.
The landing was a bit precarious. A rocky ledge just a couple of metres wide, with another cliff beyond, it wasn't that flat, the surface was kinda loose, and whether due to the discomfort of the tight harness, or just general-purpose fear, it seemed my legs took a while to remember how to stand up. I released the harness and waited for Martin to descend. He was still bombing along, eager to get down, but he was obviously enjoying himself. We went up for another go each, then it was time to move to the last descent of the morning.
For the final stage, we had some company. Another tour group, much larger than our own, were negotiating the next cliff over, so while Dave set up we settled ourselves to watch the show. We weren't disappointed - one guy, in his eagerness, did end up with his head pointing downwards for a while. It was informative to watch how he eventually rectified this situation. The most inspiring thing though was a young girl, perhaps 11 or 12, sitting with her mum, crying because this height was just too much for her. We had a quick chat with her, letting her know we were all terrified too, that she was very brave to have got this far, then moved on to where Dave was now ready for us. A few minutes later, we looked over to see the kid strapped in and making her descent.
Now it's impossible to back out when a little girl is gutsy enough to go through with it, so down we all went. I think everyone experiences fear if their own unique way. Some people fear heights, and the higher they are, the greater the fear. Others fear the sensation of falling. For me, the concern is more practical - hitting the ground and going splat! If it's safe and stable, stick me up a skyscraper and I'm fine, but I'm nervous at the top of a wobbly ladder. So when the others voiced their fears at the height of this final stage, I had to admit I didn't feel any difference to what had come before. I'm not sure they believed me. Ten metres onto a sharp, rocky floor is plenty high enough to kill you. Anything on top of that is just more time to think on the way down.
So, for me at least, it went by much as the previous times. No matter how much you do it, that first backwards lean out over nothing is the hardest part. I had finally got the hang of settling myself in the harness so it didn't cut off my circulation, so I quite enjoyed the trip down. I'll go as far as saying I was eager to go again. But there was a snag. To modify some popular wisdom, what goes down must come back up, especially if it wants another go. And the route back up wasn't a winding path like before, but a thirty metre scramble up a steep ravine. It was fun, but by the time I got back up to the top I was worn out, and I just couldn't be arsed to go through it again. Of course the others assumed I was too chicken to go again. I'll forgive them the error - they don't know me well enough to realise fear is a far lesser enemy than sheer laziness.
Besides, I was keen to get on with the day. You see, this wasn't the real adventure, this was just practice....