Blue Mountains Part 2

As we rubbed the sleep from our eyes and peered over the top of our finely unsewn curtains, both Jen and I remarked from under our cosy peeping slags that it looked like it was going to be a jolly nice day. Well we were half right....

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Kitting up in our best (only) suitable clothes for walking in, we set out to find Honeymoon 'Lookout!', the starting point we had agreed on the day before. However, feeling somewhat adventurous we decided to extend our walk to Echo point and start a few km's back at Gordon Falls. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the local geography of Katoomba (and I'm assuming that's most of you), Echo point is considered the best spot for viewing 'The Three Sisters', so with cameras cocked, locked and ready to rock we embarked on our adventure.

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Cheerfully we set off into the bush with a skip in our step (not literally) and a swagger in our walk (quite literally) and made it all of 15 paces from the car park before making our first error. Upon encountering a crossroads, rather than taking the really rather obvious correct path (because it looked a bit overgrown and couldn't possibly be the right way) we headed straight on and down, and down a bit more, and down a bit more after that and emerged from the trees at Gordon's Lookout. 'wow' we both said.

'jeepers' Jen said.

'that's quite a view' I said.

It was at this point Jen noticed we were at the end of the path, and with no obvious direction to travel other than back the way we came or over the edge she asked 'where to now, back up the 4 million (for she has a way of exaggerating) stairs?'. I think I mumbled something about maps not being to scale and dashed back up the steps as swiftly as I could.

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On a sunny day the Blue moutains look fabulous, rich in colour and scented with eucalyptus. Looking out across the canyons depth perception becomes slightly skewed and the valleys appear shallower than they are with the forest below just a carpet of grass. Peering over the edge, and there are many edges, you notice the blades of grass are really 80ft trees, and that it is a very very long way down. Especially by foot. For this reason we thought that sticking to the 'cliff path' after our foray into the woods the previous day was a sound idea. Now there are many positive things I can say about Australia, but you've probably heard them already, so I shall tell you one thing they don't do well. Signs. We fell victim to their lack of accurate signage on several occasions. Let me give you an example, heading towards Echo point from Gordon falls we passed a sign that read 'Echo point 4km'. Five minutes later we passed another that read 'Echo point 1.5km'. Hmmm Olympic standard athletics or Intergalactic wormhole. None of this mattered though, because after a brief discussion on the apparent innumeracy of Australian signmakers we were introduced to what can loosely be termed as 'a change in the weather'. Smug in the knowledge we had packed for all weather conditions, we donned our (almost) matching jackets, picked up the pace and headed on to the Three Sisters.

Being somewhat cynical I steeled myself in preparation of the tourist trap at Echo point. Now don't get me wrong, tourism is an industry that needs investment to flourish, but after our beautiful walks through the valleys and across the cliff top paths to arrive at our destination I was disappointed at how commercial it looked. The viewing area is an enormous disc of concrete slapped on top of the cliff edge adorned with a pre-requisite gift shop and toilets. It just felt wrong watching herds of tourists trooping off their airconditioned coaches, snapping away for 15 mins with their cameras before filing back to their seats and being driven away. What the hell, they were missing the best of the Blue mountains by doing that, we had earned the view, and it felt good.