Travel

Hiking in the Grose Valley - Blue Mountains

A group of us headed up to the Blue Mountains for the long weekend for a 2 day hiking trip. We arrived on Friday night so that we could start walking early on Saturday morning (at least that was the plan). Once we organised the car shuffle (one car on Mt Hay road and the other in Katoomba) we started walking along the Lockley Track out to Lockley's Pylon. This was pretty easy going and had fantastic views.

From Lockley's Pylon we headed out to the edge of the cliff and found the track down into Blue Gum Forest. The track down is very steep to start with but gradually becomes easier the futher along you go. When we got to the bottom of the valley we had to cross the Grose River.

At Blue Gum Forest we discovered that our planned route out (the Grand Canyon) was close due to poor track conditions. This didn't really matter too much as we could take the Govett's Leap track. We continued along the the valley about 500m or so to Acacia Flats which was our designated camping ground for the night. This area is really beautiful and is a good reminder of why it's worth the effort of hiking into these places.

The next morning we continued along the valley towards Blackheath. To start with the walk was rather easy along the valley floor but fairly quickly it became a rather steep incline. It was nice walking through the rainforest. There was a lot of river crossings to do (always the same river) and many water falls to see.

We got to base of Govett's Leap just after mid day. Some of the group went for a shower under the big waterfall (which I decided against).

Climbing up to the carpark at the top was a fairly narrow path which zigzagged up the cliff face. I actually found going up the cliff to the top more enjoyable than walking up the less steep section in the forest. I think this was because you could measure your progress when you could see a view whereas in the rainforest the ascent seemed to go on for ages. The view from the top was great and we could see down to where our campsite was as well as the route we took in the day before.

From here we had a short walk along a road back to Blackheath and then a train to Katoomba to pick up our car. Wolfgang and I decided to hitchhike back to Katoomba with an elderly couple and their son. We managed to bet the others back to Katoomba by about 40 minutes or so. We sat inside a warm cafe and watched the weather outside change from a sunny day into a cold, wet, windy day while waiting for the others.

All in all it was a pretty good weekend (at least I enjoyed myself). We later discovered that the water in the Grose valley wasn't very good. Out of the seven of us who went on the trip only two of us (myself included) purified our water and we were the only ones who didn't get sick.