The final email of the series. Week 4, I had just one Saturday in Sydney. Monday to Friday was spent at work as usual. Saturday, I headed to the Jenolan caves. These caves are approximately 340 million years old, thereby making this cave complex the world's oldest known and dated open cave system. After a 2 hour train ride from Sydney and another 2 hours by bus, I finally reached Jenolan.
The place has a lot of caves that tourists can visit. But I wanted to do something different and see those caves that other tourists don't go to. So I went for a rope climbing and adventure caving tour. Caving is the recreational pastime of exploring wild (generally non-commercial) cave systems and I had never done this before so wanted to give it a shot. We were first geared up with climbing gear and mining hats. We then proceeded to an area where we had to rope climb down around 100 metres to get to the entrance of the cave. Again, I had never done rope climbing and the rock climbing you do in malls and such is nothing as compared to real life. Unfortunately, I could not get the hang of it and while climbing down, I was unavailable to maintain my feet on the rock and cave surfaces resulting in me sliding down 100 metres of rope causing some serious rope burn to my hands. My hands were having a terrible burn sensation but I wanted to finish the tour and am I glad I did cause the next couple of hours were a lot of fun.
We climbed and slid over rocks, squeezed through narrow tunnels, holes and crevices deep underground. And when I say narrow, I mean no space to move when crawling through and has to be done exactly in a certain manner. For example, one of the holes, we have to put our left hand in the front, right hand back and then crawl through. Any other way and you get stuck. In another hole, to get through, you had to kneel down then turn away from the hole and then put your legs through and slide down (think super man flying backwards). Now you must be wondering why we just can't do this straight. Because once you slid down backwards, when you reach the bottom, the next hole thats gets you out is towards your right, so you need to be facing it to be able to crawl through it. So if you go sliding down straight, you will find your face facing a dead end and the next hole exit towards the left of the legs and then you will find yourself stuck incapable of turning as there is no space. Most often, there is not enough space in the caves for you to be able to walk and you have to crawl all the way. I enjoyed caving tremendously and would love to do it again. It's a wonderful way to explore the caves nestled deep within mpuntains or underground, caves that have been untouched for millions of years and that no other tourists would visit.
I am glad I could do the above on Saturday. The long 8 hours travel journey was definitely worth it and I think I have done full justice to my weekends in Sydney.
Sunday, I flew out to Singapore and that too in an Airbus A380 for the time ever! I have nothing much to add except for the tick mark that I was fortunate enough to have now traveled in the world's largest passenger aircraft. The plane is the same inside as any other normal passenger aircraft.
Singapore is again a business visit and Monday - Wednesday was spent at work. I am staying on Sentosa island and on Thursday after working till late afternoon, I had so,e time on my hands so I went walking around Sentosa. I visited the 4D theatre which was all right but more importantly, I went luging (which by the way has been an official Olympic sport since 1964). To give some background, a luge is a small one-person sled on which one sleds supine (face up) and feet-first. Steering is done by flexing the sled's runners with the calf of each leg or exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat. Lugers can reach speeds of 140 km per hour.
I was doing luging for the first time and the track at Sentosa lets you slide downhill through sharp curves for 650 metres. First impressions? Luging is so much fun! I had a blast and tried out both the tracks they offered. I really want to go luging in other parts of the world. Its so much fun. Definitely recommend one try it out.
Friday was meant to be my day off but work came up so spent the whole day working. Saturday, I headed out to Universal Studios. The visit was fun and the most exciting ride for me was 'Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride,' which is a closed air roller coaster set in darkness. One thing here. I seem to enjoy roller coasters a lot less now. In the evening, I went to the Lion King musical at Marina Bay Sands. While the performance was great, I do get bored in operas and musicals after the first half. Prefer more action-oriented, suspense operas, musicals. For example, I loved Phantom of the Opera.
Two other points that just hit me: 1) Some parking malls in Sydney have reserved car spots for hybrid vehicles. Pretty cool way to promote hybrids. 2) When coming back from Melbourne, I went to Krispy Kreme to buy a doughnut but did not enough enough change, was around a dollar short. The cashier gave me a discount and let me have the doughnut at a dollar less. Just a pleasant experience so thought I would share it.
Back to India tomorrow. And so ends another memorable visit. Till we meet again!
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