Blue Mountains
Visiting the Blue Mountains was on my Australia bucket list from when I began to plan my trip nearly 2 years ago. That's why I'm so excited that I got to see them a few days ago!
It's really amazing to me that theae sorts of landscapes are real; it felt like I was in Disneyworld!
The smaller group that went off for the extra hike!
After this we took the approx. 2 hour drive back to Sydney. We got back just before 10pm, exhausted but very happy!
The Blue Mountains are about a 1-2 hour drive away from Sydney, and they have a blue haze because of the way the gases from the eucalyptus trees refracts in the light (or something sciency like that). I booked onto a day trip to see the views and do some hiking.
We started off with about on hours drive to a nearby town to get lunch. We stopped to eat our sandwiches at a small clearing in the national park and tried to look for kangaroos. No one saw any wildlife and the guide explained that this was unfortunately because the fires had driven them out since August. The fires do happen every year in Aus but this just goes to show how bad this year's were.
After lunch we jumped back in the van and went to a look out spot above Wentworth Falls. This was my first sighting of the Blue Mountains view, and it was just as epic as I had hoped!
Photos, of course, do not do it justice
It was a very hot day- got to about 30°C that day- but I think since we got there quite late after lunch we must have just missed the harshest of the sun.
We hiked down and across the mountain from this spot, with our guide stopping every now and then to tell us about the local wildlife, the landscape and rocks, or some Aboriginal history. I really liked the importance he placed on the Indigenous history of Australia, pointing out that it is in fact stolen land and it goes back much further than English and European colonizers. One fact he laid out for us really stood out, (which I knew but just never put two and two together) Ancient Egyptian history goes back max. 4000 years, whereas First Nation Australian history goes back 80,000 years. That is just so incomprehensible to me- and the fact that Europeans tried to erase all of that is even more shocking.
As well as the history alongside incredible views, we saw some wildlife such as a blue-tongued lizard! We eventually got to a beautiful waterfall which was really stunning to see in real life.
We got back in the van and went through a small town called Katoomba. We ended up stopping for a few minutes to see some street art, which was apparently done by a foundation set up by the local kids who kept doing graffiti on the walls of the town. Instead it was replaced with impressive commissioned street art!
This one even features the aforementioned blue-tongued lizard!
Katoomba was just a stop over on our way to the Three Sisters. This is an impressive look out spot featuring three rock formations.
At this point we were given the choice of what we wanted to do- stay at the look out, go with the guide for another 45 min hike, or go to the pub. I came for walking and views, so I went with the hike!
We got down to some more rainforest terrain and saw another incredible waterfall.
This is witches leap- it's supposed to look like a witches face
We headed back to the Three Sisters look out point to get the rest of the group, and head to our final stop for the sunset. We went to a look out point that was right on a cliff edge (it was actually quite dangerous) but what incredible views! Unfortunately by this time in the day the clouds had rolled in a fair bit so we didn't get much of a sunset, but it was still amazing to see. Obviously this was also a great time to get some photos with the lovely new people that I met.
This was really incredible day that I'll never forget!
Shepp x
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