Grand Cliff Top Walk, part 1
The Blue Mountains, a mountain range about the size of Gotland an hour by train from central Sydney. Named after the bluish hue they take on when viewed from a distance due to the refraction of light in the finely dispersed oils in the air from the abundance of eucalyptus trees.
My journey through these mountains took place over two days from the 6th to the 7th of February. It began with leaving my newly returned luggage at Little Coogee before hopping on the bus to the central station. There I could just tap on for the two hour long train to Wentworth Falls as part of the public transport in Sydney five minutes before the train left, a bit smoother than the usual SJ experience. On the train I ended up sitting next to four Swedish girls who where also going to the Blue Mountains, and after two hours of chatting with them and enjoying the mountain views I arrived in the little mountain town of Wentworth Falls.
After some quick shopping for an extra water bottle, some snacks and some heavy duty Australian bug replant I was off. The Grand Cliff Top Walk starts in the middle of town and follows the stream down towards the cliff edges. But almost immediately you forget that you are so close to civilization as you descend into the stream valley and are surrounded by rainforest on all sides with a slightly disconcerting amount of small critters running around for a Swede heading out into the Australian bush for the first time. I would be lying if I didn’t jump the first few times a small lizard scurried away almost under my feet. However the feeling of being immersed in nature was quite swiftly pulled away as I had to make my way back up to civilisation and walk through a suburban neighbourhood to get around a closed bit of the path due to flooding damages. This will be a continuing theme 😅
After this detour I reached the Wentworth Falls lookout where the plateau gave way to some truly spectacular sandstone cliffs, hundreds of meters tall opening up to the vast Jamison valley. And here I had my lunch at Fletchers lookout, wraps with yesterdays dinner overlooking some wonderful views. Then up again as this was one of many wanderings where I then had to walk back the way I came to continue the main walk, almost always up the steep cliffs again. Continuing westward this first stretch of the walk along the actual cliffs where very well kept with wide paths with steps built or carved into them. And over all the whole walk had an enormous amount of work put into it to make it a more approachable experience, even at the most remote parts where I barely met anyone and things were a bit worse for wear there were cleared paths with steps.
While still close to Wentworth Falls the paths were quit busy but as the walk continued it grew steadily more quiet, with the path varying between rock hops as seen above where water flowed down the mountain. In contras with great overhangs where the path went completely beneath the sandstone cliffs. All this with a mixture of steal staircases, carved rock steps and a lot of log steps in the trail as it snaked its way up and down the cliff tops, with “optional” offshoots down to lookouts that I almost always went on.
After a few hours I climbed back up to civilisation for a well earnt coffee and a refill of my water bottles at the Conservation Hut Café. Then back down and on to the lookouts over Empress falls which were cool. However all the waterfalls were not at there most spectacular for my walk as it was quite dry. After this I though I stayed on the beaten path by descending further into the valley, which was a really step downwards walk down a cramped steel stairways and uncomfortably steep paths. And during this decent of maybe 50 height meters, maybe more, the climate and forest around me changed completely; from dry Mediterranean brush to wet rainforest. This drastic transformation of the landscape over such short distances was probably one of the things that made the biggest impression on me.
But back to the story as I descended the stairs opened up on a small rock pool fed by a water fall with some other people bathing in it. As I was drenched in sweat from the tough walk with quite a lot of packing in close to 30 degree temperatures with a lot of sun, I found this to be an wonderful opportunity to cool off. And cool off I did as the water was icy cold, at least when compared to the heat around. Then I continued down the valley for a little bit before coming to the unfortunate realisation that this was not the way to continue on the Grand Cliff Top Walk, and as such it was only to suck it up and climb back up those stairs (though the detour was absolutely worth it, though it would have loved another pool at the TOP of the climb).
Back again in a more Mediterranean climate I reach the most solitary part of the walk along the western cliffs of the valley of water. And I was at this point also starting to get quite tired. But despite that and maybe against some better judgement I went on a few last detours out to the lookouts of Gladstone and Inspiration Point. Then back up again before finally returning to civilisation and then making my way to Leura Garden Resort where I was greeted by a hot shower and a lovely bed.
I will leave you here for tonight as this has ended up being a longer story than I would have thought. Tomorrow we will continue on the rest of this thrilling journey, starting off with a trip down to Sublime Point to catch the sunrise.
