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    Photos from Australia

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    A hard day on the rock.: by steve_and_emma, Views[388]
         		 Suited and booted for the freezing sea trip.: by steve_and_emma, Views[427]
         		 by steve_and_emma, Views[417]
         		 Plenty of OZ and NZ fur seals along the way.: by steve_and_emma, Views[404]
         		 by steve_and_emma, Views[400]
     
    The boat trip on the Tasman Sea was a real highlight. As you can see the coast line is stunning.: by steve_and_emma, Views[397]
         		 A whole village was created to cater for the convicts and prison staff.: by steve_and_emma, Views[427]
         		 The old penitentiary in historic Porth Arthur.: by steve_and_emma, Views[801]
         		 A beautiful bay that we walked along on the way to Port Arthur from our camp site.: by steve_and_emma, Views[396]
         		 Part of the main street in Katoomba, a couple kilometres from the Three Sisters lookout, which would be at the far end of the road. It's a bit of a faded looking town but still has some nice little hotels and restaurants, and is a booming tourist centre in summer.: by flyted, Views[506]
     
    A nice full view of the Blue Mountains from the Three Sisters lookout, facing south. Mt. Solitary on the left, the Ruined Castle in the middle and Narrow Neck on the right.: by flyted, Views[531]
         		 Three Sisters in daylight. There likely used to be more at the front but they have long since collapsed, as these will too eventually.: by flyted, Views[492]
         		 There it is, one of Australia's most famous sights.: by flyted, Views[916]
         		 The sun peaking into the Jamison Valley. It is hard to get a sense of the scale: about 12 km long and 10 km wide. All of this was carved by the little rivers and streams running through the bottom.: by flyted, Views[479]
         		 A termite mound in amongst the forest.: by flyted, Views[486]
     
    Part of the forest canopy. It is mostly temperate rain forest, apparently most of the vegetation in the immediate area died during the mining days and they were lucky it grew back after the mines closed.: by flyted, Views[509]
         		 Another view of Katoomba Falls on my 2nd trip across on the Skyway. All in all Scenic World risked being very tacky but was actually quite well done, lots of things to do, very informative and decent value for $30. The Skyway, with its open windows and glass floor dangling over the valley far below, was definitely the highlight.: by flyted, Views[420]
         		 Looking back up the tracks, straight up the canyon wall. The railway was built in the 1880's to ferry miners and coal from top to bottom; Katoomba was initially founded as a mining town and there were huge coal and shale mines in the area that shut down in the early 1900's.: by flyted, Views[743]
         		 The lower platform. About 30 years after the mines closed, the inclined railway was re-opened as a tourist attraction. : by flyted, Views[580]
         		 One of the entrances to the coal mine on the valley floor, now refurbished with dioramas and recorded commentary. Kind of interesting, but not too exciting.: by flyted, Views[1396]
     
    Upon reaching the bottom platform of the Railway, you set off on the boardwalk through the forest which is very impressive, dwarfing the one at Capilano in Vancouver. This is just a small section. They are careful to minimise impact on the natural environment... lots of signs to not touch any vegetation.: by flyted, Views[626]
         		 Another view of Katoomba Falls from the edge of the canyon.: by flyted, Views[364]
         		 The Skyway cable across the top and the Three Sisters over on the left. There are trails through the valley and around the far corner, or you can follow a trail around the crest of the canyon too without going down.: by flyted, Views[501]
         		 Some of the thick forest from above, these trees would be a good 50 metres tall.: by flyted, Views[978]
         		 Now over to the Scenic Railway, the world's steepest inclined railway at 52 degree and a drop of 415 metres. The seats are angled so you face straight down and hold on tight... definitely lives up to its billing.: by flyted, Views[2342]
     
    The first half of the 3 minute trip is through a small tunnel cut into the rock; this is the initial drop from the upper station where it really gets steep. Each trip sets off with the Indiana Jones theme on loudspeakers. The staff must love it.: by flyted, Views[730]
         		 The Blue Mountains in daylight, looking south. Most of the vegetation is very wild and untouched by humans to this day. Mt. Solitary is on the left and the forested bump in the middle is known as the Ruined Castle.: by flyted, Views[391]
         		 The glass floor from underneath.: by flyted, Views[392]
         		 This is the actual car, holding up to 84 people.: by flyted, Views[417]
         		 A eucalyptus tree, very common in Australia and especially in the Blue Mountains.: by flyted, Views[384]
     
    The Scenic Skyway car, heading back. It is suspended on a horizontal cable and just travels back and forth all day over top of a notch in the valley. That's Mount Solitary in the background, the only real stand-alone outcropping in the Jamison Valley, hence the name.: by flyted, Views[514]
         		 Katoomba Falls, fairly small at this time of year but still impressive.: by flyted, Views[379]
         		 The Three Sisters rock formation, one of the most famous sights in Australia. It is floodlit from about 50 metres away. The lights of Sydney can be seen in the distance, about 100 km away.: by flyted, Views[527]
         		 At Katoomba Scenic World, near the Three Sisters, home of three rides: The Scenic Skyway, Scenic Railway and Scenic Cableway. First up, the Skyway. You might call it a short wait for a long ride.: by flyted, Views[565]
         		 The Skyway's feature is a glass bottom floor that goes from opaque...: by flyted, Views[919]
     
    to clear with the push of a button. This is looking straight down a good 200 metres to the valley floor.: by flyted, Views[421]
         		 First view of Jamison Valley & the Blue Mountains, at dusk, living up to their name. The colour comes from U/V radiation scattering particles in the atmosphere and creating a blueish colour to distant objects. Actually this is common to any mountains and valleys but it is particularly pronounced here, thanks to terpenoids, organic chemicals that derive from conifer trees.: by flyted, Views[683]
         		 The Scenic Cableway cable car route heading back up to the top. The staff were well aware that it was the least exciting part of Scenic World.: by flyted, Views[643]
         		 This one is actually great as you can see the inside of the concert hall. The Sydney Opera House Grand Organ at the back is the world's largest mechanical pipe organ, 138 pipes visible, 10,000 hidden in behind. It took 2 years just to tune all the pipes after it was installed. This is where we saw the orchestra rehearsing. Everything you see, the angles and shapes of the ceiling, walls, me and the seats are all acoustically designed.: by flyted, Views[1077]
         		 by flyted, Views[479]
     
    The concert hall is on the right, we stepped inside just in time to watch and listen to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra starting their rehearsal for the day. Unfortunately we could not record or take pictures, but needless to say it was an incredible moment, complete with perfect acoustics.: by flyted, Views[480]
         		 The gap in between the concert hall on the left, and the opera theatre on the right.: by flyted, Views[411]
         		 The tiles above the opera hall. Remember: 1,056,006 tiles, each oven-baked and painted. They were purposely coloured beige and cream instead of white to keep the reflection down, which as you can see can still be very intense. They are designed to be washed by rain water, which means they have never been cleaned in any other way in almost 40 years.: by flyted, Views[432]
         		 At the beginning of the tour our pictures were taken in front of a green screen; at the end you could purchase a folder of them with various backgrounds. I noticed however that the folder had a code that you could punch in on their website to download the digital versions. So I memorised the code, and later on downloaded my photos.: by flyted, Views[715]
         		 I sure did.: by flyted, Views[487]
     
    This is the rear of the concert hall, underneath the Bridge-side shells (or stage-left when looking at the harbour), and the largest of the six performance halls.: by flyted, Views[428]
         		 So, the great challenge in figuring out how to build the roof was of course getting the shells to support themselves. The solution in the end was to picture each shell as a sphere, cut out the front half, and stick a smaller sphere inside, also cut in half, and so on.: by flyted, Views[526]
         		 Concrete ribbing that makes up most of the walls. The interior of the whole building is very reminiscent of Trent University... It has that cool, damp feeling of concrete throughout.: by flyted, Views[813]
         		 On the Opera House tour; every seat in every theatre is acoustically shaped so that whether the seat is occupied or not, the sound will be absorbed equally, therefore large or small audience it will sound the same.: by flyted, Views[554]
         		 The windows above the foyer; virtually all the piping and air conditioning is in the floor, there are few maintenance features in the ceiling or roofs to keep the weight down.: by flyted, Views[500]
     
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