This bit of writing is something Ewe and I did in 2014, that I later used in my first NaNoWriMo participation back in 2017. Life experience and all that.

I’ve tried to compress it quite a bit and keep editing minimal. The writing is not good (surprising I know) but I’m also wanting to preserve that. I was writing about the past and I hadn’t written a draft manuscript before, and it’s a reflection of what my writing was at the time. There is a little bit of fiction, but otherwise this is as it all happened.

So why am I sharing this?

I might have written about this before, but I can’t find it. Mainly, however, I like writing about my friendship with Ewe. We’ve done some silly and potentially dangerous stuff together, but we’ve also had some fantastic experiences. We have each other’s backs, and  we’ve had our downs and ups, and he’s my best friend.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

—

Ewe and I met up after work at Central Station on Friday evening. We had finished around the same time and reached Central around the same time. We didn’t have too long to waste as, luckily enough there was a train heading to the mountains leaving shortly after we arrived.

The train ride to the mountains was not one that was enjoyable unless you had company and something good and lengthy to talk about. We had the company but conversation was slim for most of the trip. We talked about how fun it would be to go bushwalking in the morning and how nice it was to be heading away from the city for a weekend.

About an hour into our trip and we decided to see who could guess the time as to when we would reach Katoomba Station. There was no reason other than boredom sinking in a lot more than we had expected.

Ewe thought that it would be 9:30. I thought it would be 9:15.

The train arrived and stopped around 9:15, but Ewe delayed us getting off so the clock would tick over. As far as I was concerned, it still counted. As far as Ewe was concerned, I was wrong.

It was a cold evening which, considering it was early winter and we were in the Blue Mountains, was unsurprising.

“Fuck me it’s brisk.”

“It’s the mountains, marn.”

We walked down the hill and followed the path around the top of a park, then followed a few more streets to reach Ewe’s mum’s place.

When we arrived there was food there that was already ready for us. Ewe’s mum had already gone to sleep and I was feeling like doing the same as my sleeping pattern had decided that it would be best to become heavily disrupted once more.

Ewe wanted to head to the pub.
I ended up going along as I thought it might be better to just go there and relax a bit before going to sleep.

We walked back into town and headed to the pub next to the train station. Unlike the cold  outside, the atmosphere felt warm and inviting.

The following morning Ewe and I got up early in the and had breakfast. Soon we were joined by Ewe’s mum.

“Good morning boys, how was the trip up?”

Ewe responded with “Not bad.”

“Well that’s good then.”

“Morning.”

“Hello. How have you been? It’s been a while.”

“I’m alright.”

“Hey mum, can you drive us to the Golden Stairs soon?”

“This early in the morning?”

“Yeah. We’re heading to Ruined Castle today. Rather get an early start.”

Ewe’s mum paused for a moment, thinking about her options.

“Alright. It’s close enough.”

Ewe and I finished breakfast, got our bags ready for the day and then headed out.

Once we were there Ewe’s mum said “Alright boys, be safe. I’ll see you this afternoon.” She turned around in her car and drove off, and Ewe and I began to make our descent down the Golden Stairs.

Vegetation was prominent but still fairly light whilst we were still at the top. Considering we had started from the Narrow Neck Plateau it made sense.  The path followed the edge of the plateau as it descended, winding and curving without straying until it reached the base. As we descended the vegetation grew thicker, yet still allowed for plenty of space for the sky to occupy.

As the sun broke through the clouds I was able to see why the Golden Staircase was referred to as the Golden Staircase. Parts of it seemed to glow as the sunlight reached out to it, almost as a golden colour. It was a magnificent sight to behold.

Once we were at the base the canopy was thick and yet still allowed for enough light to come through so as to prevent the area from being dark.

We followed the path which was obvious and easy. There were rises and falls, but the path was ride and easy to navigate. There was nothing that could be considered challenging at this point.

We had a brief stop at an area that had been used as a camp ground before we continued on due to the temperature being too cold to afford us anything longer than a few minutes.

Eventually we reached a point where we had to walk up a steep incline. We almost missed it as there was no sign but thankfully Ewe remembered and after considering the path carefully, he made the decision for us to go up. I was a little worried about this as, despite the amount of bushwalking that I had done at Otford I couldn’t think of a time where I had gone up something that looked like you’d probably scramble up whilst sticking low to the ground. Ewe seemed to sense this in me and reassured me that it would be fine. After all, he was a mountain man who had been out to Ruined Castle before he knew it was safe.

Of course he was correct and I was worrying for no real reason. There were a few slips on loose gravel but there was nothing serious enough to cause injury and after a few minutes of struggling we were at the top of the incline and following a new path.

The new path was narrower than the original one and in parts much steeper, but it was still an easy trek. We had to be more careful and pay more attention to our surroundings but there was nothing too dangerous to worry about.

Plenty of trees were there, partially obscuring the view but this also somehow made the view better, especially when we had a clear line of sight. We weren’t too high up, but we still had some amazing views of valleys and bush with rising mountains around us.

The path seemed to gradually lead upwards, taking us higher and higher without much effort on our part needed.

We reached a point that we thought was Ruined Castle at first, but it turned out not to be and so on we continued until we reached a large rocky outcrop that was most likely to be Ruined Castle.

We dropped our stuff off once we reached this point and decided that the best course of action would be to have a bit of an explore around the area. Ewe went off on his own so I decided to try and climb one of the large rocks to get a better view for a photo. It seemed that regardless of how high I climbed, trees obstructed the view.

I got about halfway up the rock before I felt a strong wind so I decided to start going back down. When I looked down I found myself feeling a little more afraid than I had anticipated, so I very slowly made my way down whilst facing the face of the rock so as to not make myself feel more scared than I already was.

Luckily I was able to get down without the rock being blown off the side of where we were.

I wandered around for a bit, appreciating the sheer natural beauty and power of Ruined Castle, feeling a strong sense of wonder and awe. Ewe came back after a few minutes and asked: “So what do you think?”

“It’s alright.”

“Just alright?”

“Yeah. It’s alright, it’s pretty good.”

“I think it’s pretty cool.”

“It’s really nice to look at. Really relaxing and humbling.”

“Makes for a nice stop if you want to rest on a long walk.”

“Yeah.”

“We should probably head back soon.”

It was still the morning but we wanted to make sure that we were back at Ewe’s mum’s place in the afternoon. We weren’t sure as to how long it was going to take for us to get back as, instead of heading back up the Golden Staircase we were going to head back via Scenic World and then make our way back from there. It had taken us a couple of hours to get to Ruined Castle, so we figured that it would take us longer to get to Scenic World as it was further away.

We made our way back down to the original path a lot faster than I thought. It seemed that the incline was much easier to go down than it was to go up.

Once down we started making our way back to the direction of the Golden Staircase as beyond the turnoff for that was the path to Scenic World.

We made a little small talk on the walk but were mostly silent. I think we wanted to appreciate the beauty of the nature we were walking through. It was really peaceful and calm. Along the path there would be small puddles of sunlight among the shade along the path which created a nice contrast. As the morning progressed more and more bird sounds filled the space. The canopy above was thick, but it was not suffocating. Vegetation surrounding us was numerous and much fallen foliage was scattered throughout the area surrounding the path. When the path seemed to straighten out for a moment before becoming curvy once more, in unison we both “The long and winding road, dun dun, dun dunn dunnn!”.

There was a moment of elation as we realised that great minds think alike.

“We just did that at the same time. I can’t believe that just happened.”

“That was amaaaaaaaazing.”

Our path seemed to follow the curve of the cliffs that were near us.

After a while there was a gradual decline of large vegetation and rocky surfaces began to increase. Our path lead us further down into a valley into an area that was mostly rock. The change of environment was interesting to see as it was quite unexpected. Suddenly the visibility of the area was vast as there was little that could obscure our view. However, this did not last long as soon vegetation increased.

We were moving pretty quickly as we were concerned about running short on time and we weren’t sure as to how far away we were from Scenic World. It turned out that we didn’t need to be worried about the time at all as we reached Scenic World well before midday.

We had a brief break as we had been moving pretty quickly to get there.
During the walk Ewe and I had discussed our options when it came to getting to the top of the cliff. We could have kept on walking further until a path lead upwards, but this would have added much more time to the journey than we already wanted to spend. Our best choice was catching the funicular to the top. It would give us some nice views and we would save energy that we’d need for the walk back to Ewe’s mum’s place.

So we hopped onto the funicular when it was ready to go and, once it took off the terror that came with being pulled upward at a really steep angle up the face of a cliff set in.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that the cable pulling the funicular up was going to snap and we were going to die. This was not how I wanted to go. I was gripping one of the handle bars tightly. Was this really how my life was going to end? Was this really how it all happened? Clearly my fate was tied and there was nothing that I could do about it, but I so verily wished that this was not how I was going to die.

No, I wasn’t going to die. I was just being paranoid. The funicular was very safe. I was safe. This trip had been done plenty of times. If there were any signs of danger then the funicular would not be operating. It would be shut for maintenance. I was safe. I was fine. We are passing through this opening in the cliff really fast. That rock wall is really close. I’m going to die. I don’t want to die.

And so on.

Ewe was gripping a handle bar for dear life as much as I was, but he was probably handling it better than I. That’s what I hoped.

When we reached the top I was relieved to discover that I had not died.

I asked Ewe “How’d you find that?”

“That was pretty full on. Not bad, but it was a bit much. How about you?”

“It was pretty intense.”

It was probably due to our not moving as quickly, but the top of the cliff felt much cooler than the bottom. We had to put our jackets back on.

We decided to sit down for a while and have something to eat before we headed back to rest.

After finding a nice bench in a quiet spot of the area, Ewe began to pull snacks out of his bag that he brought along. Whilst handing me some food, he said “It’s been a pretty good day today. We got through that walk a lot faster than I thought we would.”

“Yeah, I thought it was going to take much longer as well.”

“That was only, what… four, four-and-a-half hours?”

“Somewhere around that. Didn’t the signs we saw indicate that it would take five or six, or something longer?”

“Yeah. That was probably meant to be a day walk. Well, if we had started at Scenic World it would have been.”

“People are just slow.”

“Possibly. Maybe we were moving much faster.”

“Yeah. We need to come back here some time. It’s such a lovely area. Ruined Castle was really nice. It was pleasant to be in the bush of the Blue Mountains again.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice to visit on the occasion.”

The walk back to Ewe’s mum’s place was pretty uneventful. Once again we were mostly silent. The roads were long and easy, and due to how straight they were, gave us a nice view of the sudden steep incline back into the main area of Katoomba.

We got back a little after midday. Ewe’s mum was in the living room and greeted us warmly.

“How was the walk, boys?”

“It was fairly easy. Straightforward.”

“Yeah, it went by much quicker than we expected it would be.”

“Oh. How long were you expecting it to take?”

“Longer. We thought we’d be back late in the afternoon.”

“Did you get to Ruined Castle? Was it nice?”

“Yeah. It was pretty good.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Are either of you hungry?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“We ate after we got back to the top.”

“Well how about you both get clean and then tell me all about it?”

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing in the living room talking with Ewe’s mum.