The Blue Mountains

We had ear marked a trip to the Blue Mountains National park before we had left the UK, and given our new base in Sydney coupled with plenty of time on our unemployed hands, we waited patiently for a day when the sky was blue and clear (a surprisingly rare thing over the last ten days) to head there to satisfy our photographic desires. We caught a train from Burwood, changed at Strathfield (the next stop down) and began the one and a half hour journey to Katoomba; the town nearest the Blue Mountains. We had eyed up tour prices but we soon realised that if we just headed there ourselves (buying a $60 weekly train/bus/ferry ticket in the process that will allow us to travel throughout the Sydney region) and bought a hop on hop off bus ticket then we’d save around $50 each and we’d be able to spend as much time at each place as possible and not be railroaded through the National Park like a cattle train. So that’s what we did, we bought a weekly pass and travelled to Katoomba and bought a hop on hop off trolley ticket ($25 adult of $20 student – thank you out of date NUS card saved me $5!). The trolleys were old school tram/buses not the trolleys you find in Tesco car park…

One of the three mysteries

After alighting at Katoomba and purchasing our trolley tickets we made our way to the trolley stop and boarded the trolley. We decided to skip the stops at “Ye Olde Candy Shop” and what was basically a town square and stayed on the trolley until stop 10, which was Gordon Falls. We walked past the “Three Mysteries” (small statues of three women facing towards the sun but largely obscured by bushes) and along a dirt track until we reached a pretty severe precipice; a promontory overlooking a tremendously magnificent forested valley called Jamison Valley. The views were spectacular, breath taking and well…insert any superlative and you get the idea. There had been a recent bush fire and some of the trees were charred but it added to the rugged feel of the place and we stopped for a photo opportunity before starting our walk along the narrow valley trail.

 



 Our plan was to walk from stop 10 to stop 13, which was Leura Cascades but we ended up walking past there to the next stop – we just got carried away adventuring. The early part of the walk was amazing, partly because it was only us on the trail. It added something a bit more special and an air of mystique to the surrounding valley, as if we were discovering it for the first time (to maintain that pretence we ignored the stone markings indicating whoever had been there before us on the rock walls).

We had a brief stop at Bridal View Lookout before we reached Leura Cascades, and it was well worth the stop. We had come across a fork in the road and decided “what the hell” and went to the lookout. We were not disappointed. The view was incredible. The lookout jutted out into the valley and it gave us an unbeatable view of Leura Cascades across the valley. The ruggedness and sheer massiveness of the rock formations were hard to fully appreciate but we took in as much of our surroundings as was possible. We were just blown away by the scale and beauty of it all, we hope the photos do the area justice – if not you’ll have to visit yourselves!

After Bridal View Lookout we continued on the path until we reached Leura Cascades, a lovely waterfall type thing (a “Cascade” I’d imagine is the word I’m looking for) which made the air feel a little cooler, which was a relief as the sun was beating down on us making the walk a tiresome affair. Leura Cascades marked the end of our lone wanderings and from here on in there were a number of tourists wherever we went, not that we minded…we just like it being the two of us that’s all.

 

Ghost Nicola

We continued on our walk past Leura Cascades until we reached Kiah Lookout, one of many lookouts that give a wonderful view of the valley. By this point it was midday, and the sun was excruciatingly hot so we decided to “hop on” the next trolley so we could stop off at our next port of call. We sought shelter from the sun under an old tree whilst we waited for the trolley and before long one came along. We boarded and then jumped off at stop 19 – Echo Point. One of the most iconic rock formations in the Blue Mountains is the “Three Sisters”. This can be viewed from Echo Point (as well as Katoomba Falls which we visited later). To help imagine the Three Sisters think Three Cliffs in the Gower but on steroids (the picture below will obviously further assist you in imagining the view). We spent a bit of time at Echo Point as the views were, to repeat myself, breath taking. We visited the gift shop and then walked towards the “Giant Stairwell” aptly named for the 900 steps taking you to the bottom of the walking track underneath the Three Sisters. We only walked a little of the way down as the steps were incredibly steep and the sun was making the descent quite honestly a gruelling task (and more significantly the return ascent would have been even harder). We stopped at a lookout point perhaps 50 steps down and had an amazing view of the valley before returning and heading back up.

We caught the next trolley from Echo Point (after stopping in a mall where we saw a giant koala – toy not real animal) to our final stop – Katoomba Falls. Katoomba Falls was situated at the South West of the area and gave you a view looking back across the Jamison Valley. We decided against the walking trail there (30 minutes one way down 900 steps – they love 900 steps here) and took a load of pictures instead from Reid’s Lookout. We were pooped by this point. We had been walking and taking photos (well Nicola had been taking photos I forgot my camera – school boy error) for around six hours. We headed back to Katoomba in order to try and make the train to nearby Wentworth in order to visit Wentworth Falls but we arrived too late. So we killed time in Katoomba visiting a second hand bookstore where we were torn as to whether to buy a hardback first edition book five of the Game of Thrones (Song of Fire and Ice for the real name) series but due to the size and weight of the book we would not be able to fit it in our already over-burdened rucksacks. We caught the train back to Sydney and made it home at 19:30, twelve hours after we had left and severely tired and hungry. We made ourselves a delicious dinner, a true modern British classic – chips and cheese (with beans for me). We (Nicola) cut and sliced and fried the chips ourselves and successfully avoided setting anything on fire in the process – although Nicola did burn her hand on the lid of the saucepan we fried the chips in. In fact, Nicola did the majority of the preparation and cooking whilst I worried about the fire hazard of cooking using burning oil…

Today was one of our highlights in Australia thus far, and one of our highlights of our travels so far too.