Am sitting at Katoomba Station waiting for the Sydney train to take me into the city to meet Eileen's daughter. In my opinion there's something particularly fine about being up early on a sunny day, watching the town wake up and knowing I don't have to rush to work.
I had a bit of a revelation yesterday. Even as I hurtle towards my 50th birthday, it seems there are new things to learn about myself! We went for our promised 'bush walk' yesterday afternoon, and decided upon the Wentworth Falls as a good choice from which to descend to the valley floor. The path began its gradual descent through trees and shrubs, the sun piercing the canopy here and there. We passed hikers coming up the trail, all looking a little out of breath. Zig-zagging down, we arrived at the falls, negotiating the stepping stones across the small span of water, watching it disappear over the edge, the breeze occasionally blowing mist backwards. Quite a lovely site to see, the deep gorge beyond, the sun throwing light and shadows off the cliffs beyond. We went onwards, through a little tunnel of trees and emerged on a path cut into the cliff side, rock towering above my head at an alarming angle, forcing me to duck here and there. A rail runs along separating walker from the abyss. For a few minutes we continued, down some steep wooden steps, and all the while I was becoing increasingly aware of the drop, the sudden, sharp edge of the path to my right, with nothing but air and depth beyond. More hikers passed us, and suddenly we reached a sort of bend, curving round to the left and beyond which I couldn't see anything, as it disappeared out of sight past the cliff edge. Al began to point out another path running along the opposite cliff over to the right, seperated from us by the chasm. The wind blew alarmingly, voices echoed all around, I grasped the railing and there, however many hundreds of feet up, I realised I was having a ghastly attack of vertigo!
I think the only things that stopped me lying down and asking to be carried back up was a rather sickly sense of shame, and the only crumb of comfort was the fact that my sun glasses were slightly reducing my visibility. I quietly whimpered words to the effect of 'I say, would you mind awfully if we returned from whence we came?', and sweating with all unpleasantness, I somehow managed to return to the waterfall and, in my view, terra firma.
How appalling is that? We beat a hasty retreat to a coffee shop in Blackheath, and instead amused ourselves by watching the many odd looking people wander by (and for such a small town, there are many odd people!). A mooch around an antique/junk shop restored my senses, and then it was back home, where I carried on writing the Minnie and Jenny (and Eileen) story.
It does make you wonder how these things suddenly rear up after half a lifetime of never being aware, although I do recall feeling a wee bit unwell standing on Rob's balcony where he lived in London when first we met!
Ah the wonders of life and lessons learnt...
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