Blue Mountains was the first suggestion that I got for a day trip from Sydney from most of the people who had been in Sydney. It was on the back of my mind, but we never actively planned for this trip. After numerous beach trips, we finally decided plan a trip to Blue Mountains.

We decided to start early, around 7am, so that we get more time to cover places over the day. Unfortunately, it started raining early on the Saturday morning and we had second thoughts about this trip for a while. After around 9 am, there was no sign of rain in Sydney and in the mountains. We started off our journey around 10am, which we felt was quite late. So, we kept our ambitions low and planned to cover whatever is possible in the day.

I expected the drive to have some ghat roads, due to which I felt it would be risky to drive when it’s raining, but surprisingly the road was very smooth.

Slowly, the clouds started moving aside making our way clear and beautiful.

We first reached Echo point/Three Sisters view point in Katoomba. The views from both the points looked spectacular.

The echo point view gave us a good glimpse of Blue Mountains National Park with amazing cloud formations. The clouds moved slowly, casting shadows on the mountains!

The famous three sisters rock formations is an unusual rock formation representing three sisters who according to Aboriginal legend were tuned into stone.

Both the echo point and three sisters point looked pretty touristy.

From this point, we drove to scenic world parking area and explored the scenic world. The scenic world offers four different ways to explore Blue Mountains: Skyway, Cable car, Railway, Scenic Walkway

We didn’t explore much about this before reaching there and had no clue on their pricing structure. The prices baffled us initially: 43AUD for a day pass with unlimited rides on all these modes and 99AUD for an annual pass with unlimited rides.

We both had a good discussion whether we should go for it or not! We assumed that there was no other way to explore national Park and went for the ticket.

We wanted to take Skyway first and explore Katoomba falls on the other side. The Skyway ride was good, it took around 5-10mins to reach the other side with views of valley, three sisters and waterfalls in between.

We got a complete view of Katoomba waterfalls from the Skyway. I guess that was the only way you could see the complete larger view of falls, which looked magnificent 🙂

The falls looked very tall that they didn’t fit my camera frame easily, and definitely couldn’t do enough justice to it’s beauty in my picture.

We expected at least 10-15mins on Skyway and were little disappointed by the short distance and we started wondering if the ticket price is worthy. We took the Katoomba waterfall track from the Skyway stop and reached the upper part of the falls.

It was cold and windy the whole day and jackets are a must! It was quite an easy walk to the falls and we realised that Katoomba falls track can be reached by road easily. So, Skyway was just an experience, more than a way to explore the park.

We got back to our starting point and took a cable car down the mountain. Our initial plan was to catch the scenic walkway, but the walkway can be reached by cable car or a train only. Cable car was also good, it slowly descended into the middle of the forest and from that point the walkway started.

The best part of our trip was the scenic walkway. We took a longer route of around 2kms to cover the complete walkway.

It felt amazing to stroll in the ancient, temperate rainforest.

There was an old coal mine in this region, open to public. The operation in this mine was closed long back and kept open only for tourist purpose. The train line to this place was originally built to transport the coal.

If there is any chance to pose for a photo, I will definitely not miss it 😛

We decided to catch railway route on our return journey and that way, we got to experience all the scenic rides.

It was very steep and felt like an adventure ride as we moved up the mountain. I could imagine the feel of the train while descending, must be scary! It was a complete glass top coach which provided good views.

The first photo was from the poster 😀

I loved this train ride: it lasted for only five minutes, but it was good fun.

After finishing all our rides, we headed to Wenthworth Falls track on our return journey, for a proper hiking experience.

The track was steep with many steps down to reach the falls. It felt very cold there with heavy winds.

We enjoyed the route and reached the falls lookout point, which felt completely rewarding.

The rainbow looked like a beautiful ornament to the falls. While Katoomba falls looked tall, this looked wider!

We descended further to reach the upper part of the falls. It felt fascinating walking between the falls on the stones. We couldn’t spend much time there as we almost got wet by the watery breeze from the falls!

We headed back to Sydney in the evening around 5pm, after an amazing day!

Btw, I forgot to mention where the Blue mountains got its name from:

The Blue Mountains are so named because, from Sydney, they looked blue. They are clad in vast forests of eucalypts, which in the hot sun discharge a fine mist of eucalyptus oil from their leaves. The mist refracts light, which makes the haze look blue at a distance.