Blue Mountains

Whilst here in Sydney we thought we would take a trip to the Blue Mountains, and we weren’t disappointed. They are beautiful. We hired a little Hyundai Getz, which was actually quite a cool car, very zippy, and headed west along the highway, a journey which should have taken us about an hour and half but due to a huge traffic jam it took us about 3 hours! We checked in to our not that nice hostel in Katoomba, but hey, it was somewhere to get our heads down! We weren’t planning on staying in much.

We were there two days and spent the full two days hiking, and saw some amazing views. See our photos. We would definitely recommend this place to visit. Once you get past the bus loads of tourists visiting the 3 sisters, Echo Point and Scenic World, and get on some serious walks you practically have the place to yourself.

After a Devonshire Cream Tea…Yummy! We took a short walk through Leura Cascades, and Gordon Falls which was fairly scenic, however it did involve seeing a rather large snake, which made Dawn jump out of her skin which then in turn made Jason jump out of his skin! It was a big one. After Dawn had stopped hyper ventilating and the snake passed us we continued the walk which took us just over an hour. We finished off the day with a photo opportunity at the three sisters at sunset and a scrummy Thai meal in the town.

Our first walk on day two started with descending 860 steep steps on the Giant Stairway and then along past the three sisters deep into the blue mountains along the federal pass and we finished that walk with a trip up the scenic railway which is the steepest railway in the world at 52 degrees, and yes Dawn was a little scared. Once up there we then took a trip on the Sky Way which was a horizontal cable car that went across the mountains over the Katoomba falls and it had a partial glass floor.

After lunch we took in some scenic views at lookouts such as Govetts Leap in Blackheath and Princes Rock at Wentworth falls and this is where we embarked on our second walk of the day which was to be the more challenging. It consisted of walking the Overcliff/Undercliff/National Pass/Valley of the Waters trails, up and down steep stairs, across and underneath waterfalls, along cliff tops through undercut cliffs, it was amazing, one of the best hikes we have undertaken and we completed it in three and a half hours. The various waterfalls we saw were amazing and hopefully our photos do them justice, one of which we will be making into a wall hanging!. The ascent at the end of the walk was challenging to say the least and we used muscles we never knew we had – but it was all worth it. All in all a great day, with great memories. We did encounter another snake on this walk, however it was smaller and more docile so we managed to capture it on film, and then run…………..!