{"id":2232,"date":"2010-05-17T09:46:32","date_gmt":"2010-05-16T21:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auip.wordpress.com\/?p=60"},"modified":"2010-05-17T09:46:32","modified_gmt":"2010-05-16T21:46:32","slug":"field-notes-blue-mountains-and-mountain-towns-attract-tourists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/field-notes-blue-mountains-and-mountain-towns-attract-tourists\/","title":{"rendered":"Field Notes: Blue Mountains and mountain towns attract\u00a0tourists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Blue Mountain World Heritage area begins  approximately 31 miles west of Sydney\u2019s city cente<a href=\"http:\/\/auip.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/katoomba-falls.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-63\" title=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/auip.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/katoomba-falls.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>r. The Greater <a href=\"http:\/\/www.environment.nsw.gov.au\/NationalParks\/parkHome.aspx?id=N0004\">Blue Mountains<\/a> Area was nominated for listing as a World Heritage Area and was unanimously  accepted on November 29, 2000. It thus became the fourth area in New South Wales to  be listed.<\/p>\n<p>Starting the morning with a stroll around the  mountain town of Leura, students energized the day\u2019s start with some fresh espresso.  Good thing they did because once over at Katoomba, students joined Discovery  Ranger Muliyan Waters to begin hiking the area.<\/p>\n<p>Students observed numerous coach buses dropping  loads of tourists in the area and noted more international visitors here in  comparison to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.environment.nsw.gov.au\/NationalParks\/parkHome.aspx?id=N0030\">Royal National Park<\/a>. On the trail in Royal, the group only  encountered a half dozen other hikers. However on the Blue Mountains\u2019 trails, they saw  nearly a hundred hikers.<\/p>\n<p>Understandably, tourists flock to the area for  outstanding views of gorges up to 2,493 feet in depth from moutain points up to 3,904 feet above sea level. The tourist numbers didn&#8217;t decrease the group&#8217;s immense enjoyment of the park though.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Katoomba Falls took my breath away,&#8221; says  student Keara Ziegerer. &#8220;I must have taken nearly 300 photographs during the  day. Around ev<a href=\"http:\/\/auip.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/blue-mountains.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-64\" title=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/auip.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/blue-mountains.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>ery corner there was something incredible.&#8221; Katoomba Falls, pictured right.<\/p>\n<p>Other highlights for the day included a hike, pictured left, with  views of the famous Three Sisters formation and a scenic railway ride from the  gorge floor to the cliff line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Blue Mountain World Heritage area begins approximately 31 miles west of Sydney\u2019s city center. The Greater Blue Mountains Area was nominated for listing as a World Heritage Area and was unanimously accepted on November 29, 2000. It thus became the fourth area in New South Wales to be listed. Starting the morning with a stroll around the mountain town&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia-sydney","category-field-notes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}