Blogs from Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 13

Packed up again ready to move on - am having some issues with my backpack. everytime i open it everything seems to explode everywhere - organised mess! i may have purchased one too many items though so that could account for why things aren't fitting in anymore! Anyway, we flew from Ballina to Sydney. Ballina must be one of the smallest airports in the worls and our plane was the smallest i've been on - it took 20 passengers! low cost airlines are quite new here, but that was cool with us as the flight was dead cheap. The flight was about 1.5 hours. When we landed at sydney we went staright to pick up the car. it was an automatic, i have NEVER driven an automatic! very ammusing starting off as my left foot wanted ... read more

Well, here is the lowdown, forgo the whole 45$ bus ride to the three sisters from katoomba, just hop on the early train from syndey, and spend the day, hop on the train back. its actually funny/sad to watch people pay for it since you are forced to follow their regime. You might miss a few of the smaller sights, but the best of the blue mountains is easily accessible. I left this morning on a train with George to katoomba (we almost missed it), and then we got off the train and walked down the street to echo point 15 minute walk maybe 20 minutes. It was kind of nice after sitting for 2 hours on the train from sydney. We checked out the three sisters. After the initial 'wow thats cool' there really wasnt ... read more

A lovely hot day broke after overnight storms. We did one of the famous local walks down very steep steps down the cliff right beside the 'Three Sisters' - a distinctive weathered rock formation. It was very hard on the knees. We met two brave souls doing the ascent - which must be incredibly arduous - there are warning signs advising those with any heart conditions not to attempt it. At the base of the cliffs there is a shady walk past waterfalls through the thick gum tree forest which was very gratifying. We took the easy option of catching the very steep tourist train (originally built for hauling coal) back to the top. It had been a very satisfying walk. In the late afternoon we went for a scenic drive to some other viewpoints ... read more

We left Sydney behind to venture into the Blue Mountains (on valentines day - not sure how Jason is going to beat this next year!). We caught the 9.55am train, (which had an upstairs and downstairs!) and we arrived in Katoomba two hours later. We had booked a room at the YHA. The hostel was very nice with huge communal areas and a big, well equipped kitchen. We had lunch at a nice cafe and decided not to waste any time and get out on a walk straight away. Again, the weather had been kind to us. The heavy rain had cleared prior to our arrival, to leave blue skies and hot sun, meant we should see some good watefalls (i.e. not like the dried out J C Slaughter Falls of Mt. Coo-tha, Brisbane!). We joined ... read more

Yesterday was a full day. We left sydney early and headed to katoomba where we got off the train and headed in the wrong direction for a bit, but we eventually found our hostel the YHA. it is great! very clean very nice. We heard that the backpackers one in town here was a bit buggy and the rooms were old dispite its clean appearance. So thats why we chose the YHA. As for our health. Everyone is doing fine, but ryan has a nice sunburn on his shoulders and on the tops of his feet. A bit unfortunate but he seems to be coping. We hitched out to the jenolan caves and were picked up pretty quick. The reasoning behind hitchhiking was due to the fact that they wanted to charge 45$ to get you ... read more