So, throughout our trip, Shweetie was griping at me for waking up so late every day. That last day was no exception. The train out to Katoomba (the closest station to Echo Point) only departed once an hour, so Shweetie wanted us to catch a particular train so that we had enough time to hang out and still get back in time for our dinner reservation.
To make a long story short, we missed that train due to construction that forced us to detour through another station. So we were faced with nearly an hour to kill, and the station operator was kind enough to let us out, so that we didn't have to wait on the platform that whole time. We wandered around the adjacent shopping mall and grabbed a quick lunch at an Australian burger joint called Oporto. (Their burgers were not good at all.)
After lunch, we each went to the restroom, and while in my stall, I realized we were cutting it a little close, which was confirmed when I heard "Shweetie!" being yelled at me from right outside the bathroom door. I barely had time to wash my hands. We sprinted through the mall, back to the train station, and luckily the operator recognized us right away and opened the gate without a word. My legs were dying, since I'd already been having problems walking for the past week. Shweetie sprinted up the 30 steps, and I lagged behind. As he reached the top, he gestured wildly, and I ran the last 10 steps. We burst through the train doors, which literally closed five seconds after we got on, and the train barreled immediately away from the platform. Dude. After sitting down for 10 minutes to catch our breath, Shweetie turned to me and said, "I would have been so pissed at you if we had missed this train."
Here's what we nearly killed ourselves to see:
When we got to Katoomba, we looked at the departure times to see what train we needed to catch back to Sydney in order to make it to dinner. After walking all the way out to Echo Point and taking lots of photos, we decided we needed to head back to the station. We wanted to catch a bus back, because my feet were still killing me, but after waiting for awhile at the bus stop, we decided to just start walking back and to catch a bus if we saw one on the way. We never ended up seeing one.
I started to worry that we wouldn't make it back in time, but Shweetie was sure we'd be fine. Even though I'd mentioned that I was hungry and Shweetie suggested stopping twice to pick up something quick, we didn't stop at all, because I was so worried about catching our train. Once back at the station, Shweetie gave me our last $20 bill and asked me to get us some water from the little food stand right outside the station, while he went down to buy our tickets. I hemmed and hawed at the little stand before finally buying a bottle of water and a shortbread cookie with lemon icing.
As I was heading down the stairs to the platform, Shweetie came tearing up the stairs and yelled at me, "Cash only! WHAT DID YOU BUY?" Completely dumbfounded, I held out my purchases, and Shweetie asked, "How much money do you have left?" It turns out the ticket booth only took cash, and because I'd bought that cookie, we were now short by about a dollar. Our train was due to arrive in two minutes. Shweetie tore back down the street to get some money from the ATM, but while I stood and waited for him, I heard our train pull in to the station and then depart another 30 seconds later. Gah!
After Shweetie ran back to me and I informed him that we'd need to wait another hour for the next train, Shweetie decided to console himself by heading further back down the street to get some fish and chips from a place we'd seen while power walking back to the station.
Like I said, we can laugh about the whole day now.
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