Blue Mountains – New South Wales

We flew to Sydney, picked up a hire car & drove to the blue mountains. Despite dire warnings of terrible traffic (Friday evening) it took us about two hours to get to Katoomba the main town. Not pretty as I was expecting – an old mining town. However charming for all that. We had a walk around the town and then retired to our hotel. The Hotel was very old & had a lovely history of past glories, however the stay for me was a little marred by the unfriendly staff. The Mountain Heritage Hotel it was a very nice hotel, had a great piano player with dinner on Saturday night just slight shame about the atmosphere. That said this is the only negative reception we have received. All over Australia we have had such warmth & friendliness, it has been more than we could possibly have hoped for. Just great people.

View of Blue Mountains from Echo Point

Our first day we drove to the information centre at Echo point which is where a lot of the walks start. We did two walks from Echo point. One called the Prince Henry Cliff walk which was supposed to be about 35 minutes. It took us a little longer as taking photos. Quite an easy walk but it was hot so takes a bit more effort.

Blue tongue lizard

Goana seen on a Giant stair walk

The next day we got the bus to Echo point again & did a longer walk down the giant stairway which took us near the valley floor. This took about 2 hrs as we strolled & enjoyed the atmosphere. We were rewarded as we saw a lizard & later what looked like an Iguana. Just amazing. We ended up where the little train is which takes you back up the steep cliff so you don’t have to walk up!! A great day. The following day we drove to some amazing views as you can see from the photos. I will put some names in later.