The Blue Mountains

We flew to Sydney and then drove to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, for a short holiday back in 2017. We stayed through Stayz at Harmonica, an old house with beautiful views and lovely garden with rhododendrons in bloom. The whites and pinks of rhododendrons could be seen all around Katoomba, a quirky and colourful town, with lots of murals and other street art to compensate for the dull and derelict buildings.

There are lots of trails and hikes in the Blue Mountains and we only managed to do some of them.

On our first day we to the Echo point tourist info centre to get a map of the area, then left our car next to the Solitary restaurant and walked from there to Jamieson Lookout, Federal Pass, Fern Bower Track, up the Giant Stairway and then back to the car via Prince Henry Cliff Walk. About 8 km in total, very nice views, definitely worth it.

Another hike was from Evans lookout, via the Grand Canyon to Neates Glan (and then back to Evans lookout) – about 7.3 km, amazing views, by far the best walk of the holiday. The Grand Canyon was quite spectacular, with the most beautiful green walls ever. We then went to Govetts Leap to see the waterfall (being blown away by the wind!) and then walked from there to Pulpit Rock and back – another 7.5 km, with amazing views over the valleys, lots of stairs, lizards, ferns and smaller waterfalls. It now made complete sense to us why they’re called Blue Mountains!

It was raining the day we went to Wentworth Falls. We walked from the carpark to the lookout on National Pass, then back past the carpark, onto the Undercliff track, then Shortcut track, Overcliff track and back to the carpark. 7.6 km in total, could have done more but the heavy rain with the threatening overhanging cliffs made us turn around.