The Blue Mountains are about a 1.5 hour drive from Sydney – we took a Friday afternoon flight over from Melbourne and rented a car for the drive up. A train from Sydney to the tourist towns of Leura and Katoomba is also a good way to get to the Blue Mountains as they are an old escape from Sydney back into the late 1800s. They are called Blue Mountains because of the haze emitted from the eucalyptus trees and is really a plateau with a valley carved out with a top elevation of only 4,000 feet. We found a good AirBNB near the main hikes and attractions.
Classic blog below → Click Here for Upgraded Magazine Layout
Being July in the Southern Hemisphere it was mid-winter and there was a forecast of potential snow so a lot of people were up from Sydney. We decided to visit Katoomba in the morning while it was raining and then hike the Wentworth Falls as the weather cleared before the rain in the afternoon. Highs of mid 40s and very windy. Katoomba is tourist town – lots of shops but we found the craziest guy – pretty much believed in every conspiracy theory and had conflated a couple – in short 90% of us will die from the COVID vaccine by 2030 so David Rockfeller could rule the world. Yet, he was bargaining to get the last couple of dollars on a sale….I guess he is planning on being part of the 10% that remains.
We got more sun than expected and headed down on the hike to Wentworth Falls – all of the towns, roads, and train tracks were at the top of the plateau and nothing in the valley as far as you could see. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Area and is 4,000 square miles – about the size of Connecticut. We hiked down to the top of the fall (about 500 feet elevation change) and somehow it was sunny but raining so hard that we couldn’t see. So we kept hiking down – first along a cliffside cutout and then straight down a staircase. But the rain stopped and we realized that it wasn’t raining but the wind was blowing the waterfall back over the top. We kept hiking down to the middle terrace (another 700 feet drop) where we could look up to no waterfall making it down. The waterfall then dropped another 500 feet but we turned around there and hiked back up. By the time we got to the top – the wind had died down and the rain was gone. We then hiked around the rim for some pictures and then the real rain started and we went to Leura for a late lunch…basically everything closing down about 5pm. For the Saturday night, we went to the Carrington Hotel for a drink – a resort hotel from the Victorian Era that was celebrating Christmas in July.
Hike to Wentworth Falls
The Three Sisters
On the next day, we went the other direction along the plateau to see the Three Sisters (rock formation) and visit Scenic World. Scenic World was a series of trams and trains that took you across and down/up the valley. We hiked around the rim further and down to the valley, passing Katoomba Falls, to the rainforest in the valley and ultimately took the train back up. Happy to skip another 1,000 feet hike back up.
Quick stop at Sydney Opera House
Drove the long way back to Sydney – really didn’t see much and, unless you did a long hike, there wasn’t any viewpoints. We headed into Sydney for a late dinner at the harbor – always spectacular (even through Melbourne still better overall) with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
Good weekend – but I did missing catching up with my high school friends back in Tulsa – 40 years is a long time.
Leave a Reply