So I guess Katherine had never been to the center point tower (that big thing that looks like the space needle) so me, her, her boyfriend Paul, and Alex all went to go see it. It was pretty cool, its a really nice view. You can see all for mile and miles and miles (or in metric, for kilometers and kilometers and kilometers). It was pretty cool, but the lighting was really bad for getting pictures with people in them, but I got a picture of the harbor and you can see all the way out to the ocean from there. All the green trees there are the domain and botanical gadrens. Just out of the range of veiw off to the left is the opera house, and that peninsula of green is where I watched the sunset from. In the background is the opening to the harbor and the northern side (the left) is Manly and thats where I was when I visited the Manly beaches, and the zoo is just out of view to the left across the harbor from the city. I also got a picture of hyde park from above and the cathedral, hyde park is right next to the centerpoint tower and thats where I took the picture of the tower from.

I got Katherine and Alex to send me the pictures they took from center point tower and they came out pretty well so this one from left to right Alex, Katherine, and some ass hole who jumped into the picture. and this one from left to right is that ass hole again, Katherine, and Paul (Katherine's boyfriend).

Ok so since the 4th of July isn't really a publicly celebrated holiday here, I decided to celebrate it myself by going on a little "bush-walking" adventure. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. So I caught the 8am train out to Katoomba, which is one of the towns in the blue mountains. I got there at about 10am and followed my map to walk over to the main trail entrance and information center at Echo Point. The views just from there are amazing. You can see right into the valley and across it with all of its cliffs and the three sisters, one of the most famous rock formations around here, and its pretty freaking amazing. What is hard to tell from the pictures is that every piece of sand-stone cliff that you see in those is a sheer cliff at least 200 feet high and probably more than that. To the bottom of the valley I am pretty sure was over 1000 feet vertically, maybe more. I climbed a butt-load of stairs today. So I went to the info center and found out why you can't find any maps online, because they cost 6 bucks with a little book about bushwalking in the area. So here is the map, and I highlighted the route I took in a fleshy pink color. In all it was something like 15-16 km so thats like 10 miles-ish. I stated at the little thing where it says information center at Echo Point. At first I was disappointed, because it is a very well beaten path and for the first 10-15 min it was paved and there were people everywhere, but as I got further along it got better. The Prince Henry Cliff Walk was amazing though, there are great views from the cliff to the other cliffs across the valley, and of closer cliffs. and more cool views of cliffs and the valley. The thing about the climate of the area is that it all used to be rain forest a billion years ago or whenever, but Australia's move north and the winds dried off most of the continent (it was f-ing windy, I almost got knocked over a few times at Echo Point). But with all these cliffs and little streams there are these small pockets that form that are moist and tropical and quasi rainforest like. It was amazing how quickly it would change though, one minute you would be walking on dry hard sandy dirt with eucalyptus on either side, and then a min later you would be in muddy wet dirt with moist air and a drop in temperature surrounded by ferns and tropical type plants, and then a min later you would be back to the dry. Here you can see how quickly it would change, on the left is the dry eucalyptus, and on the right are the moist ferns. The changes in micro environments was incredible. So as I got closer to where I wend down into the valley the views were still amazing, I could see down the whole valley. Going down into the valley was one of the most amazing parts of the whole bushwalk. You leave the drier upper mountains and winds behind and follow a stream down into the valley and the whole way it is a tropical forest, I was surrounded by all these crazy birds and amazing landscape, huge rocks and cliffs carved out by the water, it was amazing. The stream did not have much water in it but there were 3 main waterfalls, but only my picture of the top one came out. It was like a dream world for me because ever since I was little I have been kind of obsessed with the rainforest and although it wasn't a full out amazonian rainforest it was still pretty amazing. So around here I ran into 2 women (probably about 25), one from australia and one from quebec, and we were going the same direction and started chatting and I ended up chilling with them for most of the rest of the walk, they even gave me a ride back to the train station (yes mom I got into a car with strangers, but I had known them for 2 or 3 hours at that point). I even got invited to dinner with them, but I had some stuff I needed to do here and I think they may have just invited me to be nice because they were talking about it in front of me. But so we all walked through the valley together and the valley was pretty amazing too because it was kind of in between the tropical and dry because it still got the killer sunshine, but it had less wind because it was protected by the mountains. Some of the trees down there were taller than anything I think I have ever seen, and it was pretty amazingly beautiful. Unfortunately we did not encounter any wildlife besides birds, but some of the birds were amazing. There were like flocks of yellow crested cockatoos and all these bright green and red birds and apparently one of the birds is called a bell bird and although we didn't actually see one I could here them and I didn't think they were birds, they sound exactly like bells its amazing. So we eventually got back around and decided that instead of paying 7 bucks to take the scenic railway, which was like a gondola back up the cliffs, we were going to get some butt exercise and walk up the stairs. It was easily over 1000 steps, and maybe over 2000, and before that in the valley we were going up and down the whole length of the trail. So needless to say I am going to be soar as balls tomorrow. But we went up the Furber Steps and from there, there were some great views of the three sisters. Most of the stairs were along the cliff, but there were still a lot of trees and stuff growing out of the cliff face and what not. We finally reached the top and we were pretty tired, but there was still a ways more to walk. it was still pretty tropical like and we came across a bigger stream that had some cool plants and an amazing waterfall that lots of kids were climbing (it was like a series of rocks). We finally got back up to the top altitude that we had started at and the wind was incredible, if there weren't a guard rail there I think I would have been blown off the cliff taking this picture. So that was my bushwalking adventure, and I would highly recommend it to anyone in the Sydney area that is even remotely interested in nature. Even the train ride out is amazing, and its not too expensive if you catch it at off peak hours.