We decided to go to The Blue Mountains today as the weather outlook for the rest of the week was not looking good. The mountains are about 2 hours from Sydney and are supposed to be at least 10 degrees cooler which is why a lot of Sydneysiders visit in the height of summer to cool off! The drive there was lovely. We went on the Bells Line of Road which is supposed to be really scenic and we knew that because we would be returning in the dark (sundown is about 5pm in New South Wales and then it goes dark almost immediately in Australia).
On our way up into the mountains, the sky was getting blacker and you could feel the temperature dropping. We had taken a picnic, but decided to stop off at Blackheath to get some chips to go with it and take them to a picnic spot at Govetts Leap. When we were in the chippie, the rain started and then got faster and faster!
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| Australia isn't all good weather!!! |
We weren’t going to be beaten by the weather and found that the picnic area had little stone covered shelters. We set the picnic out and we were freezing.
Daisy was too cold to eat, our hands were like ice and the rain was just pouring. It felt like having a summer picnic in England! Govetts Leap is a lookout point over the Blue Mountains but there was nothing but rain and cloud at this point!
Then…the rain cleared up so we decided to go to the lookout. It was a bit flooded and slippy and at one point we had to balance on some tree logs to get across a flooded part! It was worth it, the view was stunning with low cloud contributing to the atmosphere!
The reason they are called the Blue Mountains is because of the thousands of Eucalyptus trees which produce a fine mist of oil above them causing the valleys to appear blue. We think that the rain may have washed a lot of this oil away, but although we couldn’t see it being as blue as it might have been, the views were stunning nevertheless!
As time was getting on, we decided to venture on to Katoomba where we were going to visit Scenic World. Scenic World is a company which has 3 ways of seeing the Blue Mountain scenery. The first is a perpendicular train which descends into the valley, a cable car back up from the valley and a Skyway which was in effect a cable car going from one side of the valley to the other over the Katoomba Falls with a glass bottomed floor.
We went across the valley first on the Skyway. You get views across the valley and can see the famous ‘3 sisters’.
Once across, we walked to the cascades, a spectacular series of waterfalls.
We decided to go into the valley on the train. It was like a roller coaster and at the steepest point descends at a 52 degree angle. Emily was nervous. We sat at the front, in fact we were the only ones on it! The train started to the tune of Indiana Jones! It was fantastic and when we got to the bottom, all 3 children wanted to do it over again!
here we go…..!!
The train is actually the original train from the 1880’s which used to take the miners down into the valley – what a way to travel to work in a morning!
We went on a rainforest walk down in the valley which is on an elevated boardwalk. We were intending to come back up on the cable car but were outvoted by the kids who really wanted a 2nd ride on the train!
We had a look round the very good gift shop but time was getting on and we still had 2 places to visit before it went dark. We drove to Echo Point which was a viewing point for the 3 Sisters. Even though we had seen this view from Scenic World, we couldn’t believe how close we were to them.
The sun was setting and we still had to go to Wentworth Falls which apparently is best viewed at sunset. We got in the car but the signposting wasn’t great and we ended up getting lost a couple of times. Eventually we found the lane where it was. By the time we got there it was dusk to say the least! We looked at the lovely view, but as the walk to the falls was going to be about 15 minutes one way, we decided that we would have to give it a miss, since it was nearly dark by this time.
Blue Mountains were great (despite the freezing lunch!) and well worth the 2 hr drive to get back.
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