Travelling Hopefully - To Katoomba? Part 2

It wasn't my intention to actually do very much on my brief holiday.  Actually it wasn't my intention to do anything at all.  I brought a bunch of books and as far as activity was concerned it centred around sitting and reading.  Still, after coffee had been consumed I found that I had itchy feet so I started wandering.

Katoomba has a whole series of shops selling what they probably call curios and antiques and what I usually refer to as kitsch and crap.  I went through a whole series of these looking for a birthday present for my brother.  Perhaps fortunately for our future relationship I didn't find one. 

With shopping unsuccessfully completed I struck out along the main street of Katoomba, its called Katoomba Street.  I stopped when I got to Echo Point due to several hundred metres of escarpment between myself and the next piece of solid ground.  I could have made my way down via one of the walking trails but the only thing to do when you get there is come back up so I decided to cut out the middleman and stay at the top.

Looking around I was greeted by a magnificent sea of green.  It was a vast throng of Asian tourists all in matching iridescent lime green parkas.  Next to this blaze of colour the actual view faded into insignificance.  Even more of an anticlimax was the collection of tourist shops lurking around the point.  I presume somebody must buy their wares but I can't imagine who.  Certainly none of the green parka wearers were clutching stuffed kangaroos or bags of emu jerky which formed a disproportionate amount of the goods on offer.  There were natural snacks for sale promising to contain "no gluten, dairy or sugar".  This made me a little concerned as to what they actually did contain.  I didn't buy any just in case I wound up snacking on crushed puppies.

With the sun beating down on me (it was quite hot until you took off your overcoat at which point it became quite cold) I strolled back to the guesthouse.  There were many more things I could have seen but I've seen most of them before and I had a date with Field Marshal Radetzky (the guy with the march).  Back at the guesthouse I lounged around, read and occasionally interacted with some of the other guests most of whom seemed to be bushwalkers of some description.  One young Dutch lady informed me she had just done a five kilometre walk on a sprained ankle which struck me as taking dedication too far.  Still if bushwalking is what you come for sitting in an armchair reading probably strikes you as a waste of time.  Fortunately she now had a little time to recover as she was going on a restful camping holiday with her sister.  As for me, walking to the railway station on two fully functional ankles was quite sufficient.

One one occasion I took a slightly different route on my way to the shops.  I topped a rise on a street occupied by some not very interesting buildings and unexpectedly found myself with a view right out to the national park, the mountains, woods and the cliffs and it took my breath away.  A minute later I was going downhill and the view had vanished.  Just occasionally Katoomba takes a sneaky opportunity to remind you why people go there.