I started to feel a bit lonely at some point over Sydney. Tim was working full days and even tho’ at first I was just fine being alone and walking around Manly and Sydney at some point it really started to bore me. I’m pretty sure that once I get to Thailand I’ll get loads of more traveling mates since I’m staying at hostels etc, but here I’ve felt a bit lonely time to time.

I really wanted to visit the Blue Mountains but Tim had been there so many times and was afraid of heights so he couldn’t really accompany me. I decided to post an ad to Australia Gumtree and CouchSurfing to find someone to go there with and do some hiking + random stuff. First I thought that I would have no luck at all since all the replies were just some lonely men trying to find someone to date with, but finally, after couple of days trying I got lucky.
The first to catch my interest were two french guys Paul and Yannick, who were planning to rent a car and stay the night over Blue Mountains hostel. They were looking people to share the expenses and share the experience. So I called them and found out that there would be a French girl named Lucie to join us, since she was traveling alone around Australia for a year and was interested to join our company.

First I thought that going to the Blue Mountains alone with three French people wouldn’t be such a good idea since I knew how anal French people can be about speaking English. But apparently the rule doesn’t apply to French people who are abroad. The traveling ones commonly try to avoid contact with other frenchies and are a lot looser with the English so after Paul and Yannick convinced me that they would speak English and not French together I was all ready to go.

We met up in a car rental place near King’s Cross at 10 am where we rented a car together and set up on our way towards Blue Mountains.

Heading towards Blue Mountains! Paul on the left reading the map and Yannick on the right trying to get used to the left side traffic.

I must say that I had the most amazing time. FINALLY I had found some mates to travel with and whom I got along with perfectly. We hit it off right from the start and I really enjoyed Lucie’s sarcastic sense of humor and Paul’s and Yannick’s honest and relaxed attitude. During our trip I learned to appreciate them dearly.

Well, finally we arrived Katoonga and booked our room from a hostel near the center. Right after settling in we started to plan our first plan of action and which hike to do first. I was trusting their opinion totally so mostly I just chilled and watched them to have an discussion about the possibilities. Generally I very rarely have an opinion about plans, since I usually just like everything. I had come there to do hiking and see the mountains and that was already in everyones mind so the rest was just details which I didn’t think about that much. I trusted that whatever we ended up doing it would be the best.

Lucie, Yannick, Paul and me trying to decide what hike to take.

We decided to head to the Three Sister’s first and then start a hike from there on whatever path we would be able to finish before night fall. This is the view from where we started on.

The views, the views, the views. You would think to get used to them, but every time we climbed somewhere to take a better look where we were, we were always gasping for air from the awe.

We descended a very steep path downwards by the cliffs and it didn’t take me long to have my ears pop from the pressure between the mountains. While descending I remember thinking that “wow, this is really far down. I hope the climb isn’t this bad” but as soon as we hit the bottom I kinda forgot my worries.

Me at the bottom of the mountains. A deep jungle and no other people in sight.

It took us about one hour to walk by the path on the bottom and we were taking hundreds of pictures like all proper tourists do! :D After around 30minutes of wandering we came to this clearing with tables and benches to sit. There was a lonely Japanese guy who we politely asked to take a picture of all of us. It didn’t really go that well, since the sun was setting and it was just in between when flash would make the pictures too dark and without it, it would be blurry. This is the best one we got:

The hike was just amazing. We didn’t see that much animals and I was so surprised how little I saw any spiders or bugs. I think I’ve had more bugs flying in my face in Finnish summers than i had in the jungle. So it wasn’t at all bad.

Finally we started ascending and I had a real surprise. Let me explain:
Before I left Finland I started to have some breathing problems. I had trouble getting full breaths. So i headed to the doctors before the trip and they gave me some asthma medicine even tho’ they didn’t really know what was wrong with me. I was in such a hurry before I left that I forgot the medicine to home. I suffered some air shortage over the flights but just after spending two days in the Sydney’s moist climate my breathing was considerably better.  If I didn’t do anything hard I was able to breathe fine and after some days I forgot the breathing problems I used to have al together.
Well. Over Blue Mountains, on my first hike, while climbing back from the bottom of the mountains I remembered every little detail with my breathing.

Finally after spending an hour at the bottom we started to climb back. And boy-oh-boy I saw how foolish I was to gotten myself to that situation. My chest hurt so bad! My breathing was wheezing and I was gasping for air with every step. After 15 minutes I was super worried how on earth I would ever be able to get back to the top. I was disappointed, worried and ashamed about myself at the same time. Disappointed because I thought that after all the training I had been doing you would imagine that I would never have any breathing/lung problems, and there I was feeling like a fish on dry land. And worried because at that point there was quite a lot of climbing still to do. And ashamed because I didn’t want to let my traveling mates down. They were really looking for the hiking and I didn’t want to be the weakest link.
Luckily Alice raised to the occasion. She was cheering me on and waited for me after every corner. She reassured me that I had nothing to worry or be embarrassed about. I made journey little by little in my own time. I had a slight worry that the sun would set before we would reach the top. But with the help of Alice I continued with good spirits.

Not much of an hello from Alice since she was busy texting for help with her mobile phone:D heheh.. .Naah, just kidding:D Yannick and Paul had had just a little rest the previous night so Yannick was having some head aches, but other than that I was already starting to feel quite positive about making to the top.

It took us about 15 minutes more to finally reach the end stop. And on arriving we forgot all about the tiring trip and just fell silent with awe from the nature and the view.

We sat there a good 20 minutes admiring the view and settling our breaths. It didn’t take long until we all started to feel quite hungry and finally settled towards the super market to get some supplies for the evening barbecue. We bought some cider and beer and headed back to the hostel to do our magic! We stayed up well over 1 am talking, drinking and eating. Just when we were ready to head bed we ran in to American guy called Joel and stayed up finishing the wine he offered and it didn’t take long before one of us asked him a ride back to Sydney with our car and welcomed him to join our little adventurer team for the next hike.

We went to bed happy, drunk and full. I could not have asked for better friends to share the adventure with than Paul, Yannick and Lucie (and Joel later on). I was so happy about the whole day and surviving from the hike that I slept hard and deep and dreamed about all the amazing things we would encounter the next day.