Australia: Notes from the Road

I’m blogging from my trip down under. I thought it might be nice to cross post one here for a little blog continuity!
All work and no play makes Nancy a dull and out-of-shape girl, so today I headed out early to Australia’s beautiful Blue Mountains with Bronwyn Stuckey et al for a bit of a tramp in the misty woods near Katumba to see the “Three Sisters.” (Full trip pictures here.) I deeply appreciated the chance for a bit of play, because my two weeks here are packed with workshops and conferences. So some time on the wild is perfect.

While a dense, misty fog kept us from seeing the sculptural grandeur of the Three Sisters formation, we had a wonderful walk. The weather kept away the tourists and for long stretches of the walk down the Giant Stairway and along the valley wall we had the woods to ourselves. We took our time going down the over 500 steps, but even still, my knees and legs were a bit wobbly.

As we walked along the ridge above the valley, the sounds of the birds were amazing. We saw vivid red and blue birds (I need to look up the name), small finches and heard many more. Along the way, we had the extraordinary good luck to come upon a male and female pair of Lyre birds. Apparently they are attracted to blue. I was wearing blue. Heh! The walked towards us, giving me time to pull out my camera and catch the pair before they flew up to a distant gum tree.

There were many small, colorful spring flowers – miniature show pieces – and burbling waterfalls. Thankfully, we did not have to walk back up the 500 stairs, instead taking the worlds steepest funicular train. We snagged the front seats (which are really the back seats going up) and in just a few minutes, we were back up at the rim and headed back to Echo Point were we started. Here are a few shots of the ride up:

Tomorrow the workshops begin – on Monday, Stewarding Technology for Communities in the morning, Graphic Facilitation in the afternoon. Join us?