We’d originally planned to take a day trip to the Blue Mountains, as this is what most people seemed to do. However, as I’d accepted a week’s work at Code Camp back in Sydney which meant we couldn’t leave on the greyhound for another 2 weeks, we decided to make a longer trip to the mountains. The main reason behind this was very much financial (not wanderlust or wanting to experience more of the mountains, I don’t know if this makes us good travellers or bad!?). In short, hostels in Sydney were $36+ a night, whereas in Katoomba, the hostel was $26! We figured, at worst, we’d spend a couple of days chilling out in the hostel- this was because people were shocked that we’d booked 5 nights in the mountains! We had pretty low expectations of being able to fill 5 days of activities, but this is a very good example of the fact that you should take other people’s opinions with a pinch of salt! This was my favourite holiday-within-a-holiday of the whole trip (yeah I know, we’re spoilt with our holiday inception).

The classic and impressive 2 storey trains of Sydney took us 2 hours to get to the heart of the Blue Mountains, in Katoomba, which is like a village with shops, cafes etc. (Oh, also this 2 hour trip only cost $5! National Rail take note!)

We also booked a kind of hop-on-hop-off coach, that you could take around the mountains, so you didn’t end up walking 5km down a road before begin your hike. So, the morning after we arrived, we hopped onto the bus to visit Wentworth Falls, our very first waterfall! This was a pretty easy and chilled walk, as the first falls were just down a few steps- we also got a breathtaking view of the whole valley from the lookout, which was still very misty. We completed the Wentworth Falls to Valley of the Waters (and Empress Falls- which had people abseiling down the waterfall!) later in the week, which was probably my favourite hike as it was quiet but had great views of the entire valley! By that point in the week I’d also adopted a Gandalf-like stick to walk with, but more of that later!

Back to that first day, we really packed it in! After the chilled out visit to Wentworth Falls, we hopped back on the bus to take us back to Katoomba Cascades, which we then walked along the Prince Henry Cliff Walk to the famous sight, the Three Sisters. Of course, being the main tourist attraction, this was full of the ‘day tour’ kinda people, who we (in our newly minted self-righteous hiker mode) felt out of place among, as many of them were NOT dressed for walking, let alone hiking! I’d read about the walk from the 3 Sisters to Honeymoon Lookout, and we decided to fit this in before the end of the day, however this did not go to plan!

Missing the turning for the lookout, we ended up climbing down the Grand Stairway, which has around 1000 steep steps. Which, at 4pm after a whole day of walking, was not fun. But of course, what goes down, must also come up, and after a brisk (we didn’t want to miss the final bus of the day!) 40 minute walk along the forest floor, we had an equally steep climb up to do, complete with much moaning from 1 of us (no hints here, I feel like we know who it was....)

The hostel was pretty cosy, actually the perfect place to rest our weary hiking feet, complete with comfortable sofas, massive kitchen and board games! Up in the mountains it’s a lot less humid than Sydney, so the weather was actually also a nice welcome break, one day it even got as low as 9c!

The next day, Friday, we’d decided to pay an extra $30 or so to visit Scenic World, which was near Katoomba Falls and Furber Steps (which we’d climbed up the day before!) There are 3 rides there, so first we took a large cable car, with a glass floor (!), over the top of the mountains, to see the slightly misty, but green and glorious, sight of the mountains. As we’d already visited where the ride took us to, we decided to just go straight back and do our next ride, the world’s steepest railway! I’m not sure of the angle exactly, but it was like just being plunged head first (nearly) down to the forest floor. However, I thought this was bad....on the way up we did it backwards! It was so steep I didn’t even know how the train was sturdy or even moving at all, it was as if we were on the end of an elastic band that could (and felt like it would), snap at any moment! Of course, of course this was just me creating this catastrophe in my head, as David was delightfully manoeuvring and adjusting the seat to we could feel even more like we were falling to our death! After the terror of being suspended in a rickety train, the final cable car, down to the forest floor and back, felt like a dream. Although, this was supposed to be a hiking trip and so far on this Friday we’d been thoroughly lazy, so after the morning at Scenic World, we set off to complete the walk we’d accidentally veered off from the previous day, from Echo Falls (not the wine, I’m very sorry to say) to Honeymoon lookout. We’d planned to continue on the Prince Henry Cliff Walk after this all the way to Bridal Veil Falls and eventually Gordon Fall, but the helpful bus driver on our Hop-on/off bus informed us that part of this route was closed, so we wouldn’t be able to get round. This was disappointing but super helpful that we knew before setting off on this route, then an hour or so in having to turn back! While we relied on the bus to take us round the route we couldn’t walk, we still managed to do plenty of hiking, seeing Leura cascades, Bridal Veil Falls/lookout, before making it round to the spectacular Gordon Falls lookout, with an amazing view of the entire valley, hill after rolling hill and greenery as far as the eye could see. Among all these amazing views, of course we did have our moments: the most memorable happening on this second day of hiking where both myself and David (in two separate incidents!) jumped out of our skin after seeing 2 particularly large and yellow lizards! We were on red alert for snakes, so upon hearing the rustling of these lizards and seeing their yellow faces, naturally screamed really loudly! Definitely not the safest way to react around a potential snake.

The final day was marred slightly by spatters of rain, and the fact that our first planned walk, to Lyrebird Dell, was complicated by a difficult route involving stomping through a lot of tall grass/plants (remember:snakes!), so we called that particular walk off and headed into Leura village for a short coffee break. In fact, this whole day was pretty much a long break as, after we finished the aforementioned valley of the waters walk, we made it to the chocolate factory to sample some DIY hot chocolate (you melt it yourself in kind of like a fondue pot!) To be fair, after our few days of maximum hiking we felt like we deserved a break, so we spent the last day resting in the hostel and booking some onward travel, before sadly leaving the mountains and heading back to Sydney.

Highlights: Hiking along to Wentworth Falls from the Valley of the Waters, seeing the amazing views of both the entire mountains and the waterfalls.

Accomodation: Blue Mountains YHA