Hiking the Blue Mountains

Day 129 – Blue Mountains National Park, Australia

(You will notice how many places/environments I have hiked in my titles.)

Yesterday, while doing nothing of my day (well, putting my pictures online is work) and preparing the next week, I found that Sydney’s public transportation go to the Blue Mountains, that you can find walking tracks reasonably accessible from the train stations, and that on Sundays, travel tickets are capped at $2.70. So basically, the 4h return journey would cost me $2.70.

I checked the weather, and decided that the rain wouldn’t stop me. Just as well, as I came home soaked through.

I targeted Wentworth Falls, a town whose walking tracks cover many waterfalls (one track is called the Valley of the Waters). I got up at 6am, caught the 7:11 train, arrived at quarter past 9, walked half an hour to the start of the trail… multitasking by having a chat with my sister, checked which tracks were closed (risk of rockfall), and went on my merry way, trekking poles in hand.

My first stop was on Queen Victoria Lookout, where you have a stunning view of the valley. When I realized that I intended to take the track at the bottom, I started to have second thoughts.

The Blue Mountains – Queen Victoria Lookout

Going down further, I followed and crossed Isobel Creek then reached the Empress Falls, truly impressive. (Isobel Creek is a tributary, joining the falls at their bottom.)

The Blue Mountains – Empress Falls

There, an orange net and a notice informed me that my intended walk was closed. Yay! No more climbing down! The way back up was slow… very slow… There are many steps, some carved in the stone, some of packed earth and wooden risers, some of wooden stairs and some of metallic stairs. The lot wet, a bit muddy, and full of puddles.

And the mist -or the rain cloud- rolled in.

The Blue Mountains – Lyrebird Lookout

I cut sideways to join the clifftop walk -more mud, more mist, more rain- and arrived at Den Fenella, a creek with its own lookout. And a strange bird. (According to my source, it is a lyrebird.)

The Blue Mountains – Lyrebird

If you look, you will see that its head is not moving when the whole body follows the movements of the leg, digging at the ground.

The lookout showed me a valley so shrouded in mist, or fog, or cloud, that I couldn’t see the opposite cliff, even less the valley floor. So I took some pictures of flowers. It is Spring, after all!

The Blue Mountains – Den Fenella Lookout – Spring flowers

I switched to the Undercliff Walk, more mud, more rain, and finally reached Wentworth Falls. From the lookout, the fog made it impossible to see them clearly; farther, I mean lower, the path cross them a bit over the falls, so we see smaller waterfalls but not the spectacular, 100m-tall falls.

The Blue Mountains – Wentworth Falls

I went back up, and saw signs to go back to the train station by following the creek (Darwin Walk) without walking in the street. So I followed that, took more flower pictures (see header), and arrived 2 min before the next train back to Sydney… which I found quite nice of the schedule to accommodate me like that.

As always, my pictures are in the gallery.