John's magic place

For a curious, little european guy arriving for the first time in Australia, particularly if that guy is interested in all he sees around him, the feeling is almost that of a child entering a toy store for the first time. Everything is new, everything is different. While I was driving my rental white Toyota from the airport to the Blue Mountains National Park, about 100 Km west of Sydney, everything was catching my attention: the cars, the advertising outdoors, the birds flying near the road (yes, you can easily see cockatoos in the city), the people walking, busy in their everyday life.

When I arrived at the Blue Mountains, and after spending a good half an hour under the shower in my room, in the Katoomba guesthouse where I would be spending the next three nights, I had already forgotten how tired I was from the almost 26 hours of flying from Lisbon to Sydney. I put on my backpack, and I was off to look for the views and landscapes that earned the Blue Mountains a place among the Unesco World Heritage sites.

Despite the name, the Blue Mountains are not mountains in the true sense of the word, but big red and orange sandstone cliffs rising majestically from a huge eucalyptus forest that spreads out as far as the eye can see. The name comes from the blue mist that we can see rising from the forest when we look at this magnificent landscape from a distance (it's actually caused by the release of certain types of oil from the eucalyptus trees). Other than the cliffs and rock formations, of which the Three Sisters, near Katoomba, are the more famous, this area has also some water courses that carve deep narrow canyons, or tumble on high waterfalls. At least that's what was written on my travel guide, because when I got to Govett's Leap, the 300 m waterfall was just a trickle of water running down the cliff (it had been a dry year).

Having missed what I was looking for, I was just preparing to go away when I noticed some funny looking birds that were not afraid to come close to the few people that remained in the lookout. Once again, curiosity took the best of me and I couldn't resist asking a local man what were the names of those birds. I can't remember the name (it was one of those strange aboriginal names), but John, the man I talked to, said they were quite common.

"Do you know what I'm doing here?" he asked as I was preparing to leave. Shyly I said I didn't, and he said he was there because it was a special day and that was a special place. It was the day of the month John went there to meet his wife, that had passed away some time ago. I listened carefully as he told me that his wife had asked him that her ashes should be spread in that place she loved so much if she died before him. I listened while he told me he had rented an helicopter to grant the last wish of someone that had meant so much to him. From then on, John visited that place every month, always in that same day, to pay his respects to his lost companion, and surely to remember the good times they spent together. We stood on the lookout for some time, side by side, talking, both turned to the amazing landscape that had suddenly gained a new life with the story John had just told. After a while we said goodbye with a vigorous handshake, and with the usual wishes of mutual happiness.

I did not see the waterfall of which my guidebook spoke so well, but I left that place certain that I had left a magical place, at least magical for someone, and I'm glad that someone decided to share its magic with me. I couldn't help but think that every person has their story to tell, and many people really wish to share theirs with someone. Sometimes all it takes is a little curious european guy willing to listen to them...