Blue Mountains Adventures

On Saturday #1 of Aunt Kaye and Uncle Phil's visit, we grabbed a car and headed out to the Blue Mountains. We didn't have any specific destinations; it was just a beautiful day to get out of the city and see some of the amazing lands around Sydney.

Our first stop was at some of the overlooks to check out the mountains. I like going to the overlooks because it's such a dramatic change from being in the city.  It always amazes me that after just 1 1/2 hours drive, we can be in such a drastically different place. We stopped at Evans Lookout first.

Then we headed over to Govetts Leap overlook to try out the Braeside Walk. The walk looked interesting enough: it went to an overlook for Bridal Veil Falls before descending a decent bit. Then the walk crossed the stream (before it becomes the falls) and then followed the water up to an old abandoned dam. The dam used to store water that was used by the steam trains in the mountains.

The walk was really lovely because we got to see the mountains, a waterfall, a creek, and some surprisingly grassy areas. Lots to look at and take in!

Photo by Uncle Phil

After our morning's hike, we made a quick stop at The Three Sisters to take the standard tourist photos. Of course the overlook was really crowded and full of tourists, but the sun was warming up the day and it was feeling really pleasant.

Here I noticed that Uncle Phil and Toby have an eerily similar approach to dealing with crowded spaces: they head off to the most deserted area they can find and make themselves look generally unapproachable.

After a quick bite for lunch in Katoomba, we headed out of the mountains. But we decided to make one more stop, which turned out to be one of the hidden surprises of the day. I'd read about the Kings Tableland in a hiking guide book, and I decided that we should try to find it. The book was very sketchy on details, with statements like "exact access to the trail changes due to land disputes" and "look for a narrow, overgrown path." But I figured with four of us, we could probably find it.

And find it we did! We parked the car in a questionable spot near someone's house, and headed out through the narrow, overgrown path. Luckily, we came to a sign before too long, which pointed us out toward the actual Tableland plateau. And after walking for just a few minutes, we found this amazing sight!

We learned from the signs and from my guidebook that this plateau has been an Aboriginal gathering place and is a very significant area for some of the groups. It was easy to see why after being there.

Photo by Uncle Phil

It was also quite a change from our previous stop at the Three Sisters, with all the chaos of the tour buses and selfie sticks. We had had the spot all to ourselves.

At one point, we heard a scream from Aunt Kaye. It scared me to death, because I was sure she'd dropped off over the edge. Luckily it was just because she'd almost put her hand on a giant spider. He was a pretty intimidating looking fellow! We used our photos to later determine with a fair degree of confidence that he was a huntsman spider - not poisonous, but the kind that do grow to a serious size. A very Australian end to our day in the mountains!

We took a side path on the way back to the car to check out a shelter area that was supposed to have some Aboriginal engravings. We looked long and hard but weren't able to find a trace of them.

Then four tired people headed back into the city! In a move that Toby later coined the "breaking your guests" maneuver, we unwisely decided to head out to see the Vivid lights with no real break in between activities. But that's a story for another blog post!

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