The Blue Mountains

As much as I love living in a city, sometimes I just need to escape it--to see wide open skies and breathe fresh air. So this weekend, I hopped on a train at Central Station with two girlfriends for the two hour journey to the Blue Mountains. When we arrived, we couldn't believe that it was cold enough to see our breath, so we quickly changed from our summer sandals to hiking shoes.

We stayed in a hostel called No.14 in Katoomba, which I highly recommend.  This small guesthouse was cozy and quaint and felt more like a bed & breakfast than your typical hostel. Emily, Meisha and I shared a room with a window and door that opened onto the veranda for $25 each. Coffee, tea and breakfast cereals were complimentary, as was WiFi. Gingersnap cookies and DVDs were available for 30 cents and $1 respectively, with all proceeds benefiting a charity in Lima, Peru. We chatted with some of the other house guests in the common room and traced hiking routes on maps while we warmed our shoes and socks by the fireplace. I loved that there were no televisions in the house, meaning I was able to enjoy the quiet pleasures of reading a book, writing in my journal, and sleeping peacefully through the night.

The hiking trails in the Blue Mountains National Park were really well-designed and offered spectacular lookouts. On Saturday, we hiked to Katoomba Falls, beginning at Echo Point where there's a great view of the Three Sisters rock formation. The next day, we did a three hour hike to Wentworth Falls, walking over moss-covered stones and crossing over and underneath waterfalls; it was one of the best trails I've ever hiked.

Wentworth Falls and Katoomba are both sleepy little towns nestled in the mountains. There was a Roaring Twenties festival going on so the jazz music on the street and the trolleys, as well as the couples dresses in flapper dresses and zoot suits, made me feel like I had stepped back in time. There's not much to do in these towns and all the bottle shops close before 8:00 pm even on a Saturday night, but there's lot of great cafes and places to eat. We dined at three places, all of which had a delicious & unique menu: Blue Hour, Station Bar and Il Positono Cafe. I also got lost in the basement of an antique shop called Mr. Pickwick's, with over 60,000 secondhand books. I left with a small handful of vintage travel books that I can't wait to display on a bookcase one day.

My weekend trip to the Blue Mountains was so relaxing and surprisingly inexpensive. I hope to return before leaving Sydney, so that I can explore new towns and hiking trails.