Sydney – Day 2

On my second day in Sydney I decided to take a day trip to the Blue Mountains.  It was only a 2 hour train ride away, so I packed a lunch and some snacks and took the train to Katoomba, a little town in the Blue Mountains.  From there, I didn’t have an exact plan of where I wanted to go, but I had looked up some hikes and knew that there was a place called Echo Point that has a beautiful view so I headed there first.  From Echo Point, you can see the three sisters, a famous rock formation on the side of the mountains.

View of the Three Sisters from Echo Point

After taking in the view for a few minutes I started down one of the trails.  Along the way, there were signs showing where you were and how long it would take to get to various places, so it was easy for me to know where I was going and gauge how much further I should go before heading back.  On the trail you go down quite a few stairs since you start at a higher elevation and then head down the side of the rocks into the forest.  There were several waterfalls that I went by, which were really beautiful, and I stopped at a few lookout points along the way.  Since I was on well marked trails with steps, the walk was not difficult at all.  Then, once I got to a fork where one way was a loop back to Echo Point, I decided to head back.

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The thing that I did not account for was what is called the Giant Stairway.  I had read about this online and had planned to go down it and then loop around and go up the Furber Steps, which are much less steep.  But, I hadn’t seen that path so I went the opposite way from Echo Point and went down the Furber Steps.  That meant that at the end of the hike I needed to go head back up via the Giant Stairway.  I quickly found out why it has this name.  After climbing about 900 steps and taking a couple breaks, I finally got back up to Echo Point.  From there, my legs were pretty tired and it was getting later in the afternoon, so I decided to get the train back to Sydney.