Driving into the Blue Mountains an hour west of Sydney is child’s play compared to navigating the European Alps. Where the latter has worryingly narrow and winding rounds, the Australian range is connected to the city by a string of dual carriageways.
They’re not pretty and not particularly environmentally friendly but we were soon seduced by the region’s landscapes of hills, canyons, eucalyptus trees and pines. The modern highway also makes it difficult to imagine the struggles of the 19th century convicts who first carved the route through the coastal plains into the mountains with little more than pick and shovel. And what would’ve been wilderness to them is now tempered by towns and villages, pylons and rail lines.
Blackheath was our first target that day, a town that stands at 1,065m and is close to the highest point in the range. It’s a popular stop with tourists and day trippers, if not as attractive as the Lonely Planet guidebook had promised and a victim of the motor vehicle. We had lunch in a converted cinema that doubles as one of the town’s large number of irresistible antiques shops, which we had a nose around briefly. Later, we walked in the sunshine through quiet residential streets to the Blue Mountains Visitor Centre and onward through the woods to Govetts Leap, one of the top local attractions.
And emerging from the woods to it was one of those awesome moments in travel that will linger long in my memory, for we found ourselves looking out over the vast wilderness of the utterly sensational Grove Valley. Its sandstone plateaus and broad vales reminded me of the Grand Canyon, but covered in forests. In the distance the wispy Govetts Leap Falls fell several hundred metres down the cliffs, blown around by the wind, and the blue haze that gave the mountains their name – generated by oils from all those eucalyptus trees – hung over the hills. It is absolutely and completely one of the most impressive landscapes I’ve ever seen.
We had a wander round but it was hot and I was perspiring for Britain so the idea of going for a walk down into the valley was dispensed with and we walked back into town instead and drove to our hotel, The Carrington in Katoomba. It’s a historic property complete with an ancient lift, squeaky floorboards, stained glass, wood panelling, worn-out bedroom furniture and pre-war glam. The town is as hilly as the Himalaya, notable for some wonderful Art Deco architecture and as overloaded with antique shops as the rest of the Blue Mountains. We had a dinner the size of a small country in the Old City Bank Brasserie, which is part of the hotel, and followed it with a few beers in the hotel bar.
The next day we drove to Leura, a pretty town close to Katoomba that we found bursting with lush planting, fancy homes and well-tended gardens full of the agapanthus we’d seen all over the place in Australia. On another sweltering, humid day we followed the footpath through the woods and valleys down to the Leura Falls, a pretty cascade, and then beyond. The views were again exceptional and we couldn’t stop taking photos. The chirps of birds, squawks of unknown animals and a host of other weird noises accompanied us. Later we drove on to another viewpoint for a view of the Gordon Falls but they were more a dribble than a waterfall, a sure sign of a dry summer.
Wherever we went the views of the Blue Mountains were beyond description, no more so than at Everglades. An Art Deco house on the clifftops, it’s the gardens that are its real attraction. Designed and built in the 1930s by Danish-born Paul Sorensen, they feature terraces and winding paths, streams, a grotto, a log cabin and majestic views of Mount Solitary and the Jamison Valley. What a place to call home, although these days the house is a National Trust property and cafe. We stopped for tea and cake but it’s a shame not more is made of the inside.
We drove on, without stopping at the hideously touristy and crowded Echo Point, which gives close-up views of the rock formation known as the Three Sisters. We were heading for Scenic World, a depressingly named tourist attraction that extracts large amounts of money from tourists in return for allowing them to explore the valley at Katoomba.
So we queued in the obnoxious heat to catch the glass-floored cable car across the gorge to what’s billed as the world’s steepest cable-driven funicular railway, which at one point dips 52 degrees. We were funnelled through the obligatory shop – a vast enterprise full of the most awful rubbish – but I have to say the quick trip downhill, part of it through a gap in the rocks, was bonkersly thrilling. I feared we’d tip over at one point… The railway came into being when this was a coal mining area, when it was used to carry the magic black stuff back up to the cliff top. The miners quickly realised that it could double as a tourist attraction on their days off and started selling tickets to, as photos from the time show, extravagantly dressed locals and visitors.
At the bottom is a mini exhibition about the history of mining in the area and a series of elevated paths through the woods but it’s all very orderly and it’s impossible to wander off piste. The landscape was peppered with giant boulders that had fallen from the cliffs above us, as well as old mining equipment that was rusting into the forest floor. It was quite busy and nowhere near as good as our other walks in the Blue Mountains, or indeed through the national park in Tasmania. There were too many tourists around, it was too organised and the queues to get back uphill were grim.
After returning to The Carrington, we chilled out on the hotel’s verandah with a pre-dinner drink and then ate in their elegant dining room. It was all very posh, old-fashioned and proper and the food was excellent but it’s a hotel that needs a bit of investment to make it truly 5 stars.
We left the Blue Mountains the next morning for the drive back to Sydney but before saying goodbye to the national park for good, we made one final stop at Wentworth Falls. Another beautiful spot of forests, sandstone cliffs and a gentle cascade, it got our cameras whirring again…