Day 82 Absesailng in the Blue Mountains

Couldn't have been a more perfect day in Australia and a trip to the blue mountains.  The funny thing was I had no idea what we were doing on this day trip.  It's a good thing they didn't tell me at first because I probably would have been mentally psyching myself out.  We got to the blue mountains and next thing I knew we were putting on helmets and harnesses to get ready to absesail.  Or in other words do the opposite of rock climbing, we were rock descending.

Here we are getting all suited up and ready for action.

The rock on the right is the rock we practiced technique on.  It was a baby rock.

There I go!  Too easy!  At first I thought this will be no sweat.  Well my confidence quickly went away when we got to the next location where we would be climbing down.

This was the view from the second location where we would be descending down the side of the ridge.  It's weird to think that the only thing holding you up is a piece of metal drilled into the rock and then glued down.  Good thing we learned that afterward.

I don't know if you can see it but if you zoom in I want to explain something about the landscape.  Since the majority of the Blue Mountains is Sandstone it has been worn away by the rain.  Therefore, the slope leading up to the top of the mountain appears to come to a dead stop.  Where the slope stops it looks as though the mountain range has been unnaturally pushed up and that's where the ridges appear creating a plateau. In reality, the ridges are formed with the side of the mountain breaks off in a landslide created the bare spot which people apparently absesail off of.

Proper technique includes keeping your feet flat against the rock, having your dominant hand on the rope that is harnessed to you as your break, and squatting down so you are literally at a 90 degree angle.

This is the second location from the bottom.  The person you see at the top is 30 meters away from touching flat ground again.  That is about 80-90 feet of walking backwards down a cliff.  I happened to do this one twice to really try and shake off any nerves before the big one.  It's actually easier to go down faster because when you go slow the constant stop and go jerk makes you more nervous.  That's my opinion at least.

Just a photo for good measure.

Cecilia and I were trying to look tough even though we looked like cone heads with these particular helmets.  the figure eight things you can see are where the rope was threaded through and attached to the harness.  It felt like I was wearing a diaper the whole time though.  Not particularly comfortable.

This was at the top of the third location.  What a gorgeous view.

Alright, so this is not me but I wanted to give some perspective of how far we descended for this next part.  From the top of the ridge to flat ground again was 90 meters or in other words nearly 300 feet.  Even thinking about it gives me sweaty feet.  I tell you what: this trip has really challenged my fear of heights, but I'm trying to overcome it.

Apparently, the first 30 meters your feet are on solid rock.  The other 60 meters you're not touching anything.  As you can see, I forced myself to go upside on the way down.  We could only do this one once, there was no practice run so I went for the spider man pose.

In a way once you're going, you actually forget what you're doing and how ludacris it is.  As I slowly descended, it was as though I was my own personal gondala.  I was just staring off into the Blue Mountains and having fun and feeling alive.

This is the dead man pose.

Spiderman, spiderman, he can't do it no one can!

After our excursion, we stopped for a brunch.  These series of rocks are called the three ladies. 

The last thing we did in the Blue Mountains is visit Wentworth Falls.  Australia's east coast is full of stuff like this.  It's truly incredible to think that such a place like this exists in the universe and we're fortunate enough to live on it.

Check out the size of that moon.  Apparently, the moon is the biggest it's ever going to be for a while.  The moon was smiling away and was even bright enough to allow for my friends and I to go for a swim at 10 oclock at night!  It was so bright we could even play catch with a rugby ball.  It was a beautiful night and a great way to end a beautiful day.