I've decided to continue my winter holiday activities posts today because I feel like writing about it. This time it's gonna be about bush walking in the blue mountains.
After finding out about the trip from central station the day before (and also karaoke for 3 hours), we decided that the trip was worth it and just went ahead with plans. Although it the weather forecast said "showers" we still went ahead ignoring the clouds and it ended up not raining! I guess luck was on our side. :)
Woke up really early in the morning at around 5.45 am. Not sure if you consider that early or not but it is really early for me as I used to sleep till 11 during the holidays :P. Prepared and ate breakfast and packed our lunches which we made the day before - fried rice and strawberries as dessert. Rushed to Central station and caught the 7 am train to Blue mountains.
Me with the intercity train
Kuan Lung taking a double decker train for the first time
(at least I think it's his first time)
On the train together. See we look so sleepy
We reached Katoomba Railway station just in time to get the tickets and board the first Explorer Bus. We decided to skip the touristy things such as to take the Skyway to Scenic World and opted to stop at Katoomba Cascades and bush walk all the way to Echo point. We did change our route as we walked cos it is a really really REALLY long walk.
At Katoomba Cascades - our first stop
Looking tired already :P - On the way to Furber Stairs
A beautiful view from one of the lookouts on the way
Not really tired - just posing for the camera
Can you see a face at the rock?
We saw many weird things on the way
We actually encountered many mysteries of nature on the bush walk. It was really funny and made us use our imagination to compare nature with our everyday things.
The three sisters from bottom view (rather than from echo point)
We stopped at Vera's grotto on the way down and I mistook it for the famous
Katoomba falls
We met a couple in the 40-ies on the way down to Federal Pass and they were really friendly. There were only 4 of us walking on the same path and they were not on tour with us. The other tourists opted for the less challenging walks I guess and went to scenic world. I think the couple lives in the blue mountains because they seem to go bush walking there very often and they knew where to go without even looking at the map.
Halfway through federal pass, we finally reached Katoomba Falls at around lunch time so we had some fried rice and also our strawberries. The good thing is they prepared some tables and chairs for bush walkers to eat. The bad thing is there's no toilets at all along the whole bush walk trail. Luckily I didn't have an issue with that, unlike someone else. Hehehe.
Large up-rooted tree. Haha It isn't really uprooted,
just that the roots grow above the ground.
Starting our journey up the Giant Stairway.
All 800++ steps of it
Almost reaching the top. We're sitting in one of the sisters
(the three sisters)
After the tiring journey up the stairway, we headed to Echo point to go to the desperately needed TOILET and caught the 1.15 p.m. bus to the Blue Mountains Chocolate Company. Unfortunately, they did not show us how to make chocolates as promised in the pamphlet - it's only done if you book in advance for a big group of people. So we stole some chocolate samples and head off towards the supposedly romantic Honeymoon Lookout but it was not romantic at all. Nothing to see there. Waited for the next bus to Leura Cascades which arrived at roughly 2 o'clock.
Emergency Chocolate from the chocolate company
At Leura Cascades, the view was breathtaking even though the journey down the cascades was challenging because of the muddy path. It was hard not getting my shoes covered with mud... Sigh...
View from the bottom of Leura Cascades.
We're in the Cave pretending to be cave-men from prehistoric times. Hahaha
From there we continued to Bridal Veil View which is actually a hidden gem. More romantic than the Honeymoon lookout and more echo-ey than Echo point. Haha. We also met 2 girls there who were as breath taken as us.
The stairs to Bridal Veil View
Bridal Veil View. The smaller waterfalls
makes it look like as if the rock is wearing a veil
We went back to the bus stop and took a long bus ride from there and just listening to the bus driver guiding us through the place because we were too exhausted from all the walking. We did go to a few more lookouts such as Jamisons Lookout, Echo Tree and Fossil Rock Lookout but there was nothing there. Just a lot of muddy trails.
After resting for a while, we decided to stop at our last lookout stop which is Gordon Falls.
A picture of us at Gordon Falls lookout taken by some Caucasian tourist
As you can see it's evening already
Gordon falls was nothing to shout about either. Just a small trickle of water down a cracked rock, nothing compared to Bridal Veil. I guess we were also too tired to explore the area and just wanted to go home after a long day.
We caught the last bus and headed towards Leura railway station but we decided to stop at Leura Village. I wanted to get a free cup of tea earlier but decided to forgo it because it was near closing time and I was dead beat to go searching for the place. So we just had a quick look around the village and walked towards the railway station and caught the train back home.
Slept on the train and we reached home roughly at 8 pm. And slept like a pig till morning came.
Blue mountains - for the second time
I'm just a simple girl trying to explore the world and jotting down my experiences in this blog
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