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Crag & Route Beta

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Topic Date User

Blue Mountains climbing - east of Katoomba 4-Feb-2008 At 8:50:58 PM climberman

Message

On 4/02/2008 mikl law wrote:
>In my experience, 90% of the people who commute go a bit wierd unless you're
>only part-time. Living in the Blueys also isn't convenient for the Nowra
>/ Point perpendicular season.
>If you can work in the mountains / tele-commute it would be great though.
>Stay with a few different people for a while when you get here to check
>it all out. If you're working in town I'd stick to the inner west.

I agree with mikl. I spent a year or so in Bleakheath, 9 months or so in Glenbrook, and four years odd in Hazelbrook.

If you have to go to town each day it gets to be a big ask. Hazelbrook to Central is 1:45 on the train, and then add walking or other train connections. Budget 2.5 hours either way. Working on the notebook is fine but loses it's allure. I read over 80 books one year, and sometimes used to polish off a novel each way every day.

I'ts f'n cold at 4:30 in the morning in Hazo, with frost and shite, and it might well be snowing in the 'Heath. Anticipate a 10-15 degree difference between leaving home and arriving at work ! Still, you are from Melburn....

Train fares are around $60+ a week Hazo-Sinny. Factor that in. Also shopping and stuff are spread apart - Hazo to Tomb-town for the shopping is a 30 or 40 km round trip... Mid-mountains is a car=culture place. trains will not do for weekend shopping and stuff unless you really want to eat into climb-time.

If you can work in the big smoke a few days, and from a home a bit to break it up it makes a big difference. The Central Mountains are very suburban - brick veneer, young familes, a few bogans, but nice, in a capital 'N' kind of way. Leura, and to a lesser extent Wenty, and Nice in a Homewares and Candles way. Wenty is great though. Other than three top end resteraunts I am not in high opinion of Mountains dining really.

Pluses ? Great riding,m lovely walking, close to climbing, OK cafes occasionally.

Best if you can work up there, and then you are really in the mix with it. It's a seriously nice place in many ways. If you realistically aren't going to be climbing on a weekday afternoon, do the sums on travel.... or consider elsewhere. I'm in the 'gong (East Corrimal)... closer to the CBD, closer to Nowra/Perp/CBR/Bungonia (not that I go to any of them as I am a namby now, but hey), 800m from the beach and 3 minutes from the train station, 1:15 from town by train, 7 k's to Wollongong CBD which is kind of big enough to be a small city.

Fark, the above looks so negative... I loved all our time there, but in the end the travel killed me. For a known timeframe you would find it cool, and a bit of a treechange in a lovely way I reckon.