Fresh Air and Sweat

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We left for the Blue Mountains Monday morning from Sydney. The Blue Mountains are one of the world’s largest national parks, and according to Dad it is larger than the entire country of Lebanon. We’re all looking forward to getting out of the city for a little while and getting a little fresh air. I’m lucky that I’ve found some girls (Lea and Nicole) who are just as ready to sweat in the mountains as I am. We’ve booked 3 nights at the Blue Mountains YHA in Katoomba and we intend on getting exercise everyday.

We’re coming back to the same hostel in Sydney afterwards, so instead of dragging all our luggage with us we leave our big bags with James and just take what we need. It’s only $12 to take the two hour train ride out of the city, which is a fantastic deal, and we’re on the train just after noon. We check into the hostel Katoomba and find Nathan, Emma and Alan, who are all also in the Blue Mountains at the same time. We don’t want to waste any time, so we leave late afternoon to hike the Prince Henry Cliff Walk, which isn’t really a challenging walk. The sun is slowly starting to set so the cliffs are pink and the trees are a dark blue color - that’s where the park gets its name from, obviously. The views are beautiful. We end our hike at the top of the Great Stairway and see the Three Sisters. We watch the sunset over the cliffs from Echo Point (the main tourist attraction) and then walk back up to the hostel for dinner.

We decide that we want to cook really well while we’re in Katoomba. Everyday we get groceries and have a good breakfast, a hearty dinner, and we always pack a lunch with us. In the evening we’re pretty exhausted, so all the guests sit around for a few hours and then go to bed early because we can’t keep our eyes open. It’s best to get up early and go hiking in the morning anyway, before the sun gets too strong.

Our second day we walked through town to Echo Point and then went down the Great Stairway - 1000 steps built into the rock! At the bottom we followed the Federal Pass out to Katoomba Falls (which was not exactly as impressive as we thought it would be) and then took the SkyTrain back up to the top. The SkyTrain is the world’s steepest railway. It was horribly over priced, but we didn’t want to climb back up to the main road. The whole thing took us a little over five hours, but we went slowly and enjoyed the view and took lots of pictures. It was more work than the day before, but still not challenging enough - we were surprised that the visitor's centre had labeled it as “medium” grade when it came to the difficulty.

Our third day was really our crowning achievement. We walked through town to Katoomba Falls and went down the Furber Steps to Scenic World, which is the attraction for the tourists who don’t want to put a lot of effort into visiting the Blue Mountains. From Scenic World we picked up the trail for the Castle Ruines. The Castle Ruines is not a castle, but an unusual rock formation. The hike is considered to be on of the hardest in the park and is estimated to take people 6 hours to complete. But we were determined to do it. And we did! Along the way we met an Irish guy named Sean who was hiking alone, so he joined our squad, and we managed to complete the walk in four and a half hours! Including the distance to and from the hostel we walked roughly 14 kilometers in that one hike. We almost got lost, however, because the start of the trail was hard to follow. The view at the end though was worth every challenging moment. What made us the most proud too was that everyone we spoke to either didn’t even bother trying it because it seemed too hard, or chickened out half way through and turned around. We felt like really powerful women! I would have gone to bed early because I was so zonked, but I stayed up late to call home to tell dad that I had completed such a challenging hike and tell mum that my knees barely hurt at all. I even bought a postcard to send to my physiotherapist - she’ll be so proud!

We slept in the last morning. We had talked about maybe walking out to the Leura Cascades but decided that we were too tired and just couldn’t be bothered. We packed up our stuff and made a huge breakfast and headed out for the train again just after noon. We had the most spectacular time. There’s so much we didn’t get to see, so its worth making the trip back again one day. I almost feel like I’m going home when we pull into Sydney, which probably isn’t a good thing, but there’s a few last things to see and then its off towards Melbourne. The adventure continues.

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Photos

CityRail
Nicole on the train riding from Sydney to Katoomba

Prince Henry Cliff Walk
day 1

The Great Stairway
day 2

whoops
the giant hole i ripped in my pants on the second day

The Castle Ruines
me at the top of our most gruelling hike

the second castle
Lea and Nicole at the highest point