Blue Mountains

As much as I love living by the beach, it’s nice to be able to get away to the mountains for a weekend. Only 2 hours on a train from Central Station in Sydney- Blue Mountains is the perfect location.

I found a great little hostel/guesthouse through the official Blue Mountains website. No. 14 Lovel is about a ten minute walk down from Katoomba Street. We had a double room that was $67 a night- but there are also twin, queen and dorm room options. Tea, coffee and cereals were included with the price- the kitchen is available for anyone to use and there is fridge & shelf space assigned for each room if you wanted to make your own food.

The staff at the guesthouse were super friendly and helpful. We were able to get into our room early, and were given information about the area as far as cafes, restaurants and supermarkets and given maps to plan out our trek in the mountains. 

First stop- food. Katoomba Street is the main area, with plenty of options to pick from. Cafes for breakfast and lunch, small eateries with traditional choices, vegan specialties and a lot of Asian cuisine. Just off of Katoomba St is the Street Art Walk- really bright graffiti style murals along the sides of buildings- worth stopping by on the way to the mountain walks.

From Katoomba Street we headed down to the edge of the mountains to start the walk. We started on the Round Walk from Solitary Restaurant. We followed the paths around to Leura Cascades and Bridal Veil Falls. There are paths cleared through the trails so it wasn’t too challenging of a walk in that sense. To go to Echo Point and Three Sisters you have to loop back from Leura Cascades and walk the other side of the mountains. The views throughout are truly breathtaking. 

There is a large viewpoint at Echo Point with information about the legend behind the Three Sisters rock formations. The view is amazing when you look out from the view point over the Jamison Valley. There have been major bush fires across New South Wales and there was a fire on the other side of Jamison Valley while I was there. At first, the smoke wasn’t too bad but as the winds changed leading into night the fires definitely got bigger and the smoke covered the valley. 

Bar NSW is right at the Echo Point lookout and has a great view of the valley. There are buses that go on a loop through Katoomba to Echo Point and Scenic World. 

Scenic World is a big attraction a great way to see the Blue Mountains. A $49 ticket included the three attractions there- the railway, cable car and skyway. Unfortunately due to the fire getting worse overnight while I was there the National Park was closed. This meant we could still go on the rides- but we couldn’t get off in the valley. Even without being able to get off the trams the views are spectacular. The sky way and cable car give you a cool over view of the valley floor and different angles of the Three Sisters. The train goes down through the forest (and typically you can exit and explore the valley floor) and then you’re brought back up the side of the mountain in reverse. There’s a restaurant on site and of course gift shops with cute Australian gifts. The bus goes right from the entrance of Scenic World as well. 

We decided to end the trip with a walk through Leura Village. We grabbed our bags and headed up from Katoomba- less than a 2km walk, but up a pretty big hill. There are a lot of cute little shops along the Main Street and plenty of cafes to pick from. And then back on the train from Leura to Sydney. 

Going to Blue Mountains is definitely doable for a day trip- but I would definitely recommend staying over night and even more so would recommend staying at No. 14 Lovel. The train from Sydney makes it such an easy trip- and for less than $7! Better again if you’re a commuter you would typically have half price fares by the weekend- which means I only paid $3 each way on the train. I’m looking forward to heading back there and going to Jenolan Caves next time!