aka R’acquel

Founds some old photos, so i thought it was worth my while to finally take you cruisers on a surprise side day tour of the Leura Cascades Bushwalk with pictures to go ooh & ahh at for immediate rest & relaxation via your own computer monitors. I was unable to score good shots of the actual Blue Mountains scenery with my former Leura Tour due to the poor weather a few weeks ago, so here are the good ones on a nice & sunny day, which are bound to bring a smile onto your face - especially if you enjoy the relaxing sound of trickling water that can have the capacity to make you want to pee at times too! ;D

The walk itself is fairly easy going with well built pathways in some sections and doesn’t require strenous prowesses in the fitness department to get there.

When you’re a local - you know where the shortcuts are so this walk only took about 10-15minutes to get to the cascades. *teehee* I was never affraid of heights until i became pregnant, so this part of the walk is not toooooo bad if sudden cliff dives freak you out. I still freaked out whenever my son tried to run several metres ahead of us during this walk, of course. You can see him a few metres ahead of us already in this picture! 555

My son was very intrigued by what we think was a blue tongued lizzard, so he took this shot himself with the cheap little Kodak digicam i got for him a few years ago. They really do have blue tongues!

This is a fairly typical view of the Blue Mountains during bushwalks. You usually journey through densely covered bush and then these really big windows arrive, revealing amazing views starting to open up when you reach various sections of the tracks.

This was one of the more scarier ones as it’s a cliff-edge featuring as a lookout point, so it did raise my heartbeat up by a few notches. At least you have the safety of viewing it from a computer monitor with this one. *lol*

Views like these are also the reason why it’s not a good idea to ever go bushwalking on your own too. I remember seeing a helicopter hovering around were i live on the day of moving in, a dead man was found last weekend. Mysterious & dramatic deaths in this region in the local paper are common and at times, have been very eyebrow raising. My husband’s brother died from falling off a ledge. Just a small 4m drop. He could’ve survived it if he weren’t impaled by a tree stump… Nope - not a good idea to go venturing out into the bush alone over here, but i can understand why people still do it as many lookouts can be a very powerful means for rest, meditation & reflection - a great way to “get away from it all”. I’d still never venture out alone myself! No way jose!

…and this is why sports like abseiling & rock-climbing are so popular in this region. If your lucky, you can catch a human spiderman trying to climb the rockfaces but you’re more likely to spot this along the non-touristy trails. If you’re a thrill seeker who enjoys the extreme sports involving heights, Katoomba isn’t short of businesses that can cater to your needs, skydiving & bungee jumping included. The less adventurous tourists can always enjoy the safety of the world’s steepest railway or fly through the sky via cable car.

Verging back into the dense bushland again, the beginning of the Leura Cascades arrive and then you’re pretty much walking down the side of perhaps one of the most easiest waterfall walks i’ve ever encountered to date. No leeches present here, but maybe we were just lucky! Always a good idea to bring a bit of salt or a cigarette lighter with you, just in case! =D

It’s a very easying going & very enjoyable walk from this point onwards.

…until you get to the very bottom of it. Strong spiritual vibes down here, especially where the rockface turns into a quasi-cave. It has the sensation of being enveloped in a giant warm & loving hug by nature. Then again - you can still be prone to acute paranoia if you allow your mind to imagine that the giant rockface could fall on top of you in any minute. I think that’s probably why it feels like a massive hug - the amount of rock living above the shelter is just fookin’ HUGE! The sensation of chi in this space is very dynamic because of it.

The pool of water collecting down here would’ve been my ideal childbirthing spot, although there’s no way in hell that such a thing would ever be allowed to take place within a national park in this era. Perhaps i should’ve gone bushwalking on the brink of giving birth over here anyway! *lol* I seriously wish that i had!

When i arrived at this spot, it made me wonder if many aboriginal women thousands of years before me had water-birthed in this spot, coz it really had that strong spiritual vibe about it. Not much help if you need an emergency caesrean due to an undiagnosed breech at the very last minute after a 30hr labour, but i get the feeling that my former aboriginal elders & sisters would’ve been a shitload more experienced with handling such a thing compared to the midwives from hell that i faced at the cold & sterile KGV hospital in Sydney that had beds covered in plastic sheets! =D Then again, maybe childbirth was naturally meant to be very traumatic for me anyway! It would’ve helped considerably to have nature hug me so grandly during what was the most horrible & terrifying experience in my life. Makes me wonder what the screaming would’ve sounded like with all the echo surrounding me! =D

This was the part of the walk where I arrived at; “I can no longer go any further because it is far too scary to go beyond this point!”

I did manage to take a very deep breath and peer over the edge in order to knab a better shot nevertheless. Hoo, it was a long way down, but i’ve survived much worse over here! *lol* I’m sure that daring feat over the edge is what made me want to go straight back home, but it was worth it. As for now, it’s time to get off my bum and go take a good long pee. *lol*