Blue Mountains - Juggler Canyon

We don't know how brains work and we know even less about how Diana's brain works. She comes up with ideas that are all over the place. It is my responsibility to filter the good ones and help make them happen.

So I don't know how and where it came from but she put it into her head that when we went to the Blue Mountains, she wanted to do "abseiling" and "canyoning", two words that I still have difficulty using. The first one is German and it sounds wrong to use it in the English language and the second one is a verbing of a noun for x-treme marketing purposes.

Blue.

After waiting a couple of weeks for the rain to subside completely, we booked a tour for the day before Easter only to find out that every single hotel and hostel and airbnb room is booked. I looked every couple of hours and found a single room sometime after midnight. On the next day, we took our car and went to the Blue Mountains. We checked in the hotel, went further to the town, walked around and had some great risotto and vanilla shake. Since Diana had a cold, I asked for a whole lemon for her to make some hot lemonade at the hotel but they told us, they don't use lemons in their meals because they are too expensive!? On to the main dish ....

Green.

The day of the reckoning has arrived, we made our way to the Adventure Company offices where they gave us equipment, an extra jumper/jacket for me because mine was not going to protect me if I got wet. I also got shoes because we were going to step through mud. We were told a few words about securing ourselves and our plan for the day and off we went.

Many colours.

Our team was pretty small. It was our guide, a young girl that was doing an internship, a woman that was a bit older than both Diana and me but still made it through without problems and us two. First we went to a place which was pretty much still near the top of the mountain for practice, on a 5m wall and then a 15m drop. We took our bus to pick up our sandwiches and then to the start of our trail.

Black, blue, red and yellow on green and brown.

We were told to wear long sleeves and it was a good idea because for the most part the trail didn't have much "room" between the plants for even one person. I don't know how to describe our walk and rope without using superlatives. The scenery our excursion brought us through belongs to the most gorgeous nature I have ever seen in my life with distinct highlights every couple of meters. It couldn't have been better if it was designed by hand.

Colorz!

We had four drops and Diana got a bit wet through no fault of her own. She was the best. One would assume that climbing down those walls is physically demanding but it much less so than it seems. The biggerst problem is the pain you feel by the belt forcing itself into the waist while hanging. I have the feeling that you can avoid some of it with the right posture but didn't figure it out till the end.

Tea time.

Again, like if it was designed by hand, we arrived at the opening with an easygoing waterfall pictured above where we stopped for half an hour to have the rest of our food and some tea/coffee with a spectacular view. We needed the strength because from this point on we would be constantly ascending for the next three quarters of an hour.

On the way back.

The way back had more distinct paths, partially with real man-made steps and more people than us. Although beautiful, it felt less like an adventure and more casual even though it was more tiring. It didn't make our day as a whole any less noteworthy.

After all the fuss, the only scratches I got were not from climbing walls but what should be easy climbing through some holes between stones pictured above. I even bled without noticing which was pretty painful when I went into the salty seawater to swim the next day. Don't do that!