I went to Sydney for a conference in mid-September and we decided that it would be a good opportunity to spend a few days exploring the Blue Mountains a couple of hours inland from Sydney. Eric flew out to meet me once the conference finished and we drove straight out to the small town of Katoomba where planned to base ourselves for a few days.
We had somehow managed to time our trip during a bit of a cold snap, which actually meant that we had great hiking weather with clear days and reasonable temperatures. Neither of us really knew what to expect from the trails in the Blue Mountains, but we picked out a few half-day hikes that we thought would give us a taste of the area and set off.
Our first hike took us to the neighbouring town of Blackheath where we walked the Grand Canyon Track. After descending down into the valley, we were both surprised at how lush the area was. I would imagine that on a warm day, the cool rock walls would be a welcome respite from the sun. On a slightly chilly spring day it reminded us a lot of hikes we have done here in New Zealand.
We returned back to the clifftops and took the walking track along the edge of the cliff where we had stunning views down the valley. The day had just about been hot enough to warm the eucalyptus forest so that it started to give off the blue haze that the mountains are named after.
On our second day in the Blue Mountains we decided to take advantage of the clear day to explore some of the more famous areas of the park. We started off within the town of Katoomba at Echo Point, the viewpoint over the famous Three Sisters. Although the Three Sisters were interesting, the expansive views over the valley behind was much more impressive, in my opinion.
From Echo Point we planned to get away from the crowds and do a longer walk out to a rock formation called the Ruined Castle. The hike was relatively easy, although being in the trees for much of the time we didn’t get many views. Eventually we came to the rock promontory and after a bit of scrambling were able to find a place to perch to take in the view.
From the top of the rocks we were able to take in the views across the park and all the way back to Echo Point were we were earlier in the day. It was a great way to see a bit more of the area and to stretch our legs on a longer hike.
On our final day in the Blue Mountains we explored some different areas, a little outside of the main park. The first stop was Minnehaha Falls, the trailhead was a bit hard to find, tucked away on the edge of town, but once we arrived at the carpark it was easy to follow the track to the waterfall. It was a quick little hike to a beautiful waterfall hidden away in the bush.
The final stop on our Blue Mountains trip was to an area called Butterbox Canyon. We had seen some information online that indicated it would be a scenic hike with views out over the canyon and were pleasantly surprised when we got to the end of the hike and saw some fascinating rock formations.
The trail skirted around the canyon edge before dropping down onto a plateau. As we made our way through the scrub on the tops we could see what looked like waves of rocks.
We spent a while just walking around all of the different rock formations, with each one being a little different from the others around it. We later learnt that these were volcanic iron deposits that had been exposed after the softer sandstone that was surrounding them had been eroded.
A more technical explanation is that the concentric ironstone patterns are called Liesegang rings. They are thought to be formed from the precipitation of insoluble haematite from soluble iron in groundwater. The hard and resistant haematite ironstone is then exposed during weathering.
What was even more interesting was that after researching the Liesegang Rings, it seems that there are some examples of them on the Foreshore Track just near the house.
On our final day in Australia, we started to make our way back towards Sydney, but with some extra time before our flight, we decided to stop off at Royal National Park before heading to the airport. Unfortunately as we arrived at the trailhead we saw a large plume of smoke and many fire engines. Luckily it turned out that we had arrived just as they were doing a prescribed burn in the area and one of the volunteer rangers directed us to another track a little further down the coast. We enjoyed a quick loop along the coastal track, taking in the Eagles Head rock formation as well as some lovely coastal views. Sadly we also had our first encounter with the Australian wildlife and narrowly dodged a rather large snake that was sunning itself on the path. Given all the bushwalking we had done, we felt pretty pleased to have only spotted one snake but after that were quite content to return to the car and catch our flight back to New Zealand for some snake-free hiking!