Blue Mountains - Australia
8/8/05
We woke up early and drove to the visitor center of the Blue Mountains National Park. There we got some information about the hikes and rock climbing.
We then headed to the start of our chosen hike in Wentworth Falls. The trail went down into an impressive canyon reached by a narrow path on its wall, at least there was a fence to prevent falling :)
Not too far down there was the magnificent waterfall.
Click here for a wider picture of the waterfall
Continuing down it got harder, the access was made via slack ladders around 80 degrees of inclination, there was even a protection around it because if you fall it could be your last hike.
This part of the trail was almost vertical, we went through many stairs like that until reaching the bottom of the canyon. From there we crossed two types of forest, a rain forest and a gumtree forest. The gumtrees are taller then the others and dominate the forest. Note how Flavien and Angie are tiny next to the tree.
Click here for a vertical panoramic of gumtree
After walking a while in the canyon, the trail climbed and brought us back up to the edge of the canyon cliff from where we could see the whole canyon.
What is the adjective for this one?
Click here for a panoramic of canyon
We walked back to the car along the edge of the canyon enjoying the wonderful view all along. Then we took a scenic road along the cliff and made several stops, including the major attraction: the Three Sisters. Try to spot a little white dot at the middle of the leftmost tower, that is a person crossing the bridge that give access to the Three Sisters.
After all this wonderful sights we went to the town center in search of climbing gear. We found a climbing shop where we rented gear for the next day with Colin, another awesome friendly Australian (www.kacadventure.com.au). He gave us also all the information about where to climb and where to camp for free.
The dinner was in a Italian restaurant in town with wine from the Yara Valley. For the night we camped just next to the climbing site, Mount York.
8/9/05
We woke up early, unset everything and put it back into the car,
had breakfast in the middle of the forest in a picnic area and set off to rock climb.
Although the weather wasn't perfect we spent the whole day climbing. It was a bit cold and windy, but it was great anyway!
The Rock Climb
We climbed a sports route but with carrots, these is a method from the dark ages of sports climbing, according to Colin. Instead of a bolt there is a screw on the rock where you have to hang a loose bolt and clip the quickdraw on it; depending on your position it can be harder then choosing a cam to put in a crack.
Back to the town center to return the gear and had a nice chat with
Colin about rock climbing. He told us a lot about climbing in Korea, maybe in another trip. He also showed us his collection of gear from all around the world!!
For the night we camped again in another area, Megalong Valley.
8/10/05
Another early day, we woke up to walk in Blackheath but we did only a small walk due to bad weather. There was a strong wind and it started raining. With the sun still shinning we had another rainbow on the sky raising from the bottom of the canyon.
Around noon we went back to Sydney and to have a break of all the hard tourism we went to Woolloomooloo neighborhood for a nice Kangaroo steak and then to a pub in Kings Cross for some drinks.
We woke up early and drove to the visitor center of the Blue Mountains National Park. There we got some information about the hikes and rock climbing.
We then headed to the start of our chosen hike in Wentworth Falls. The trail went down into an impressive canyon reached by a narrow path on its wall, at least there was a fence to prevent falling :)
Not too far down there was the magnificent waterfall.
Click here for a wider picture of the waterfall
Continuing down it got harder, the access was made via slack ladders around 80 degrees of inclination, there was even a protection around it because if you fall it could be your last hike.
This part of the trail was almost vertical, we went through many stairs like that until reaching the bottom of the canyon. From there we crossed two types of forest, a rain forest and a gumtree forest. The gumtrees are taller then the others and dominate the forest. Note how Flavien and Angie are tiny next to the tree.
Click here for a vertical panoramic of gumtree
After walking a while in the canyon, the trail climbed and brought us back up to the edge of the canyon cliff from where we could see the whole canyon.
What is the adjective for this one?
Click here for a panoramic of canyon
We walked back to the car along the edge of the canyon enjoying the wonderful view all along. Then we took a scenic road along the cliff and made several stops, including the major attraction: the Three Sisters. Try to spot a little white dot at the middle of the leftmost tower, that is a person crossing the bridge that give access to the Three Sisters.
After all this wonderful sights we went to the town center in search of climbing gear. We found a climbing shop where we rented gear for the next day with Colin, another awesome friendly Australian (www.kacadventure.com.au). He gave us also all the information about where to climb and where to camp for free.
The dinner was in a Italian restaurant in town with wine from the Yara Valley. For the night we camped just next to the climbing site, Mount York.
8/9/05
We woke up early, unset everything and put it back into the car,
had breakfast in the middle of the forest in a picnic area and set off to rock climb.
Although the weather wasn't perfect we spent the whole day climbing. It was a bit cold and windy, but it was great anyway!
The Rock Climb
We climbed a sports route but with carrots, these is a method from the dark ages of sports climbing, according to Colin. Instead of a bolt there is a screw on the rock where you have to hang a loose bolt and clip the quickdraw on it; depending on your position it can be harder then choosing a cam to put in a crack.
Back to the town center to return the gear and had a nice chat with
Colin about rock climbing. He told us a lot about climbing in Korea, maybe in another trip. He also showed us his collection of gear from all around the world!!
For the night we camped again in another area, Megalong Valley.
8/10/05
Another early day, we woke up to walk in Blackheath but we did only a small walk due to bad weather. There was a strong wind and it started raining. With the sun still shinning we had another rainbow on the sky raising from the bottom of the canyon.
Around noon we went back to Sydney and to have a break of all the hard tourism we went to Woolloomooloo neighborhood for a nice Kangaroo steak and then to a pub in Kings Cross for some drinks.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 12:44 PM
1 Comments:
Our favorite blog teller just forgot to mention how "easy" it was to find a spot to sleep in the Blue Mountains... It is forbidden almost everywhere to set up a tent, and when somebody shows you a place it is either a public waste site, a road, or a very windy place at the top of a mountain. Knowing that the temperature was going down to 2-3° Celsius each night, you can imagine why some of us preferred to sleep in the car 2 nights in a row. Ok, it was a bad idea because my back and neck are still hurting from these 2 nights, so we changed plans: we slept altogether in a tent for 2 people, and this was probably the best choice. Except that we were afraid from a sofa lying without plausible explanation in the middle of nowhere just 200m away from our spot and people gun shooting very near from our tent. They were probably gaming for Kangaroos, and Kangaroos don't have tents, do they? You can imagine in which state we went to bed...
Flavien.
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