Katoomba and the Three Sisters

This is Part I of a three part post about our trip to the Blue Mountains.

I had three days off, and I wanted to get out of town, so Ethan and I decided to head to the Blue Mountains, which are a couple hours west of Sydney. We made reservations at a caravan park that would accept dogs, rented a car for three days, and headed out.

The first day, we drove out to our caravan park, stopping at Scenic World in Katoomba along the way. Scenic World, as the name might suggest, is a bit of a rip off. But I didn’t really know what the best things to do in the Blue Mountains were, and this seemed kind of like fun. We bought the $56 worth of tickets to go on three rides: a tram across the gorge, the world’s steepest railway, and a gondola up from the valley floor.

The railway from above.

This lady assumed a stoic expression as soon as I turned to take a picture.

The railway actually was pretty cool. This was originally installed to bring coalminers from the top of the valley to the mines, and then later was converted into a tourist trap. It goes pretty slow, but it is really steep and it goes through a natural tunnel. I enjoyed it and would do it again – on its own, for 11 bucks.

Once we got to the bottom, we took the gondola back up. Unfortunately, we were stuck in the middle and couldn’t see much. The only good thing about the gondola was that we didn’t have to walk back up to the top, which would have been very strenuous.

Wentworth Falls

Then we took the Skyway past Katoomba falls. This was pretty cool, although we got to see cooler things later for free. Katoomba is also famous for having a view of the Three Sisters, which we were easily able to see from all around the area.

After this, we traveled to the caravan park. I don’t have any pictures of it, but it was really nice. It was in a small town called Oberon, and was one of the best caravan parks I’ve ever been to. We had access to a fridge, stove, barbecue, microwave, fire pit, nice and clean restrooms and a laundry. Our campsite was nice and large too, which was good. We had the good fortune to camp next to a really nice couple from Perth, who gave us lots of good suggestions for places to camp around Australia. 

The Three Sisters

There were also lots of cool birds, around the caravan park, which were a mixed blessing. We saw black cockatoos, galahs, and crimson rosellas, and heard a couple of kookaburras. It was really cool until 6 a.m., when the bird life came to “sing” in the trees above our heads. Nothing says “good morning” like the black cockatoo of happiness squawking his heart out. The kookaburra also came to say hello as well, in his 40,000 decibel voice. Ah, nature.

Despite the loud birds, I would totally recommend Jenolan Caravan Park to anyone looking for a place to stay out in that region. Oberon is a quiet, cute little town, and the Caravan Park was cheap and well maintained.

Next up: Part II, in which we visit Jenolan Caves.