Our first stop was the Blue Mountains. Admittedly, the only reason I knew about the Blue Mountains was because Lucy Watson (girl crush) posted an insta-pic of herself at a waterfall there. And I was like 'ooo that's pretty, better add it to the list of places to go in Australia.' I realise that makes me incredibly basic, but I have no shame.
About 2 hours after our departure from Sydney, we started to arrive in the mountains. In my head, I had imagined windy mountain roads that were going to terrify me as a nervous passenger. But it's not like that at all. There are normal roads and numerous towns. It's not just a couple of mountains, it's actually a huge area of land, that you could probably spend a few days exploring.
Our problem was that we did no research before we went - rookie error. As we entered the first town, we saw a tourist information centre, but it was SO busy, we decided to skip it because there was bound to be another one. There wasn't. If you are thinking of heading to the Blue Mountains and haven't done any research, I advise you to stop at this point. There was obviously a reason it was so busy.
We kept driving, at this point not very impressed by what we were seeing. We were following the main road through the mountains, but we weren't seeing any amazing sights. Eventually, we spotted a sign for Wentworth Falls and decided to check it out. The car park was chocca so we did have to park in the street, but it was only a short walk. Finally, we had found somewhere with some amazing views.
Wentworth Falls has a few different walks you can take to get some incredible views of the waterfall and mountains. We picked the short and easy walk first as it was a very hot day, and when we reached the viewpoint, we noticed that the waterfall was more of a trickle (see second photo below)- It hadn't rained for a while. So we decided not to hike to the bottom - it was so steep I probably would never have got back up anyway.
Wentworth Falls also had a picnic area and toilets, so is a good place to stop and make a day of it.
One of the great things about the national parks in Australia is that the hiking signs generally giving you an idea of how long the walk will take and whether it is an easy/hard walk.
After a quick photo session, we jumped back in the camper van and continued our journey. We had a couple of hiccups finding places including getting lost on a dirt track and missing some turnings, but it's all part of the adventure right? Another popular spot is Three Sisters, however when we got there it was so busy that there was just no where to park anywhere nearby - not even nearby streets, so we had to give it a miss. We later saw it on the front of a postcard, that counts right?
Eventually, we came across 'Scenic World'- the biggest attraction in the Blue Mountains. Again, it was very busy at this location, we ended up in the overflow car park - but luckily there is loads of parking so we didn't have to miss out.
There were some free walking trails, we attempted one (did I mention it was really hot?), but ended up heading back to the free viewpoint in the Scenic World main centre. They offer tickets for cable car rides and train journeys, but I think it is somewhere you probably need to get there early for as the queues were huge! We were happy just getting some photos on the viewpoint though, and the sights were pretty breathe taking. Every direction you looked was amazing. If I were to visit again, I would go nice and early and jump on the cable car. It was about $40 a ticket, but I think it would be an incredible experience. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to spend half a day queuing.
The main centre also has a large gift store and a cafe.
If you are visiting New South Wales soon, I would definitely recommend visiting The Blue Mountains. There are many day trips available from Sydney that you could hop on if you want an easy trip. But I think I would say rent a car, take a picnic and explore!
Here are a few more pictures to persuade you...
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