Colourful caves & blue sky

The hostel in Katoomba is very nice. A small fireplace, large kitchen, free internet and no cockroaches. Okay, a 10cm spider scares me off for a moment. Cook, work, sleep. In the morning we drive to the Three Sisters, a famous rock formation. There’s nothing to see. Apart from a lot of fog.

We drive on to the Jenolan Caves, one of the largest karst cave systems in the world, an hour away. It’s really big, which means you have to drive to the car park through the cave entrance. There are 15 different tours on offer, ranging from one to six hours. We take the short one into Lucas Cave.

The caves are beautiful, but the tour is – as we all unanimously agreed – absolute rubbish. Huge groups, colourful lighting, dramatic music, stupid stories. “This rock is called Picnic Rock.” I see. I refrain from asking about the deeper reason for this inexplicable name – and get it the next moment anyway.

It should be called an adventure for idiots. Constantly snapping terror tourists are the main attraction. I actually really like caves. But I just don’t like it like this. Alternative programme: mess up as many superfluous pictures as possible. Mimic terror tourists. Playing cave zombie. After just under two hours, the day has returned to us. The sun is shining for the first time in days.

Peter is also bored. Shortly before the exit, he farts right in my face on a ladder. I forgive him the first time. The next two times that day really piss me off. His full name is Peter Lord. I just call him Lord Fart. The rest of the conversation takes a more sophisticated turn. We make our road movie in the Australian sunset.

We drive through the northern Blue Mountains to Richmond, then just under two hours further to Newcastle, north of Sydney by the sea. Our hostel is right on the beach, but of course you can’t see anything of it at nine o’clock. A drunk man runs into the stairwell. It’s Saturday. The night scene is supposed to be good. To cut a long story short: it’s about as good as what we’ve seen so far.