We started our day having bread with peanut butter and cheese, as well as hot chocolate for the ladies, and tea for the gentleman. for breakfast. We checked out from Sydney Hill caravan park around 10 and then refueled our motorhome at the petrol station next door. We bought some chocolates in case we felt hungry during the day.
Katoomba, a famous small town in Blue Mountain region, was an hour drive from Penrith. On our way uphill, the driving was easy and nice thought there was construction in the middle. The view along the driveway was nice and clean. We stopped by at Glenbrook TIC to get more information on Blue Mountains region and bought several souvenirs; fridge magnets, postcards and small soft toys to reminisce our visit to Blue Mountain. We drove uphill for another 45 minutes and we finally arrived Katoomba town. Then we simply drove and that led us to Eagle Hawk point lookout (couldn't recall the exact name). This lookout allowed wider view of the Blue Mountain at different angle. Later, drove back the junction where we saw the Katoomba Caravan Park. We inquired and there were many powered sites available for tourists. So we checked in and did every necessary things before we left our motorhome for sightseeing. Katoomba Caravan Park is opposite to katoomba kiosk, which is next to the starting point for bush-walking heading to Echo Point. And I didn't have proper shoe for so-called bush-walking. The first 5 minutes, we reached the point which is really close to the huge cliff. We took photos, testing our photography skills, wasted lots of time and got mostly lousy pictures due to poor natural lighting. And then, we continued the bush-walking which led us to Katoomba falls, which were amazing and stunning. I lowered the shutter speed and decrease the aperture, and ensured my arms were steady enough since I didn't bring my tripod. It was great to have nice pictures of the waterfall without having to edit.
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| Valley of the Blue Mountains viewed from Eagle Hawk's point |
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| Infamous Three Sisters |
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| The cliff. |
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| Katoomba Falls |
We made our way to Prince Henry Cliff lookout near the cable-car station. There was a paved route enabling the disables to enjoy the beauty of Blue Mountain landscape. The views from this lookout were more beautiful the the lookout point where we stopped before Katoomba falls. It was possible to bush-walking from here to Echo Point but due to bush-fire in the previous months, tourists were not allowed to pass through the route. Then, we returned to our motorhome and headed to Echo Point which was a few minutes drive from the caravan park. It was possible to walk but we didn't have much time to walk there.
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| The path heading to Prince Henry lookout |
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| I was here babe!! |
Things were just awesome when we arrived Echo Point. It gave us wider horizon of Blue Mountains and they were amazing. The sun was about to set and we could see the Three Sisters view at different natural colour settings. It was windy though and I guess it would blow a super skinny skank away if the wind was so strong. Oh by the way, Blue Mountains got its name from the fact that chemicals released from the Eucalyptus leaves (or gum tree leaves) produced blue coloration that made layers of air above them appeared bluish. I am not sure if this still happen but in some of my pictures, i could see blue hue of air on the valley below Echo Point. It may due to fog, or may be due to the natural production of the chemicals of from the leaves.
We thought of waiting until the sun set but we couldn't bare with the wind blowing cold breeze from the anywhere. I was told by another tourist that the view during the sunset was amazing, with red and orange horizon. Well, it seemed that I have to forget about it and made our way to Katoomba town. At the town, we bought an electrical heater at Go-Lo supermarket. It costed us AUD19.99 and we thought that it was worth buying after near-suffocating sleep due to cold in past 2 nights. Then, we kept the heater in our motorhome, put own extra gloves and wandered within the small town. We saw a shop, Three Sisters Kebab & Pizza, with HALAL sign on it. So we decided to have dinner there. The owner made a very good guess of our nationality. Yes, we are Malaysians and we are Muslims. The owner, Jamal Ayub, is a Palestinian-born who has obtained Australian PR for couple of years already. We ordered kebab, chips and hot tea for our dinner. After we ate heartily,we chatted for a couple of hours on many issues. I'm surprised to know that he was still a bachelor at the age of 41. He kept on requesting from us to find him a wife in Malaysia so that he would come to Malaysia and setup a kebab shop in Malaysia. He is a chef by the way.
After every nice meal, it was time to return to the caravan park. We installed the electric heater and we had a nice warm sleep that night. And wind was blowing so strong that night we could feel the impact of it while sleeping.
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| Three Sisters in the middle of sunset |
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| Katoomba town at twilight |
Day 4 : Katoomba-Leura-Glenbrook
Another clear and sunny sky in Katoomba. We got ready for the next wonderful day in Katoomba. We didn't prepare any breakfast on our own because we were freezing. So we decided to have breakfast in the cafe at the Echo Point. I had apple danish and while the other two had vegetarian pies. The cafe was located in a building where there was also several souvenir shops, jewellery shop and an aboriginal exhibition hall at the lower ground floor.
The jewellery shop really interest me. This shop was owned by a Hungarian guy and most products sold here are made of Australian opals. Opals are colourful semi-precious stone which look something like New Zealand Paua shells. There was raw opals being sold at vary cheap prices. I bought a few raw opals hoping that I would be able to send those opals for processing and polish.
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| Unpolished opals. |
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| Too bad I didn't try to shout and listen to the echo. |
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| Not sure why but I think this is something different from the collection of pictures I have
It was time to leave Echo Point. We headed to another lookout point known as Leura Cascades, with the help of GPS. The view at this lookout point was almost the same with the view from the lookout we went yesterday. The difference was that the Leura Cascades was indeed a cascade, giving it a dramatic look compared to the former cliff we saw. To get to this cascade, it took around 45 minutes of return walking (depends on how fast you walk of course). It was an easy walk but due to drizzle last night, some portion of the path was a bit muddy and sludgy.
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| Leura Cascades |
Done with Leura Cascades, we headed to Three Sisters Kebab & Pizza to have lunch and farewell to Jamal Ayub. He served us a delicious kebab pizza. After exchanging emails and contact numbers, it was time to leave Katoomba. We passed through the small town of Leura and enjoyed the views here. It resembled a bit of a traditional European town I saw on the TV.
We headed to Nepean River Tourist Park and arrived there around 6 pm. Unfortunately, there was no vacant powered site for tonight. It was quite disappointing but we used the GPS to search for alternative caravan parks nearby. There was one at Wallacia, which was half an hour away from Penrith. In no time, we drove through the country road which was not in excellent condition. When we arrived the park, we couldn't see the reception office and we did call the office but no one answered. And it seemed that this caravan park didn't have space for another motorhome. We got blurred for awhile and one of us suggested that we put up another nite in Katoomba. So we called Katoomba Caravan Park but it was sad that they did not receive walk-in customers after 7 pm. As our last option, we opted to stay in a cheap motel nearby Glenbrook and thank god there was vacant room for us. The price was triple the price of a single caravan powered site and that was really frustrating. But at least we could have proper and longer bath when staying in the motel. We had dinner before we went off to bed at 10 pm.
(Continued to Part 3)
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