Week 548 · Katoomba · Wentworth Falls · Three Sisters · Sydney
Blue
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. They are called Blue Mountains because of the haze emitted from the eucalyptus trees, and are really a plateau with a valley carved out — top elevation of only 4,000 feet. A UNESCO World Heritage Area covering 4,000 square miles — about the size of Connecticut.
Being July in the Southern Hemisphere it was mid-winter, with 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 Wentworth Falls as the weather cleared. Highs in the mid-40s and very windy. Katoomba is a tourist town — lots of shops. But we found the craziest guy: he 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 Rockefeller 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. We hiked down to the top of the falls (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 realised it wasn't raining: 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 see no waterfall making it to the bottom. 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. For Saturday night, we went to the Carrington Hotel for a drink — a resort hotel from the Victorian Era celebrating Christmas in July.
"It wasn't raining. The wind was blowing the waterfall back over the top."
On the next day we went the other direction along the plateau to see the Three Sisters rock formation and visit Scenic World — 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-foot hike back up.
Drove the long way back to Sydney — really didn't see much and unless you did a long hike, there weren't any viewpoints. We headed into Sydney for a late dinner at the harbour — always spectacular (even though Melbourne is still better overall) with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
Good weekend — but I did miss catching up with my high school friends back in Tulsa. 40 years is a long time.