Solo travel to explore Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia. Is it worth it?
Back in late October 2023, I had a solo trip to Sydney to visit my friends and explore the city. This post is quite long as I did some extra activities here rather than just visit popular places. Let’s have a look at my experience and enjoy reading it!
During my trip to Sydney, I spent a day to explore Blue Mountains, which is easily access by neither cars or trains. The closest town to Blue Mountains is Katoomba Town, which is historic and cool so if we want to go to there by public transport, we have to catch a train to Katoomba Station. On my third day at Sydney, I catched the Blue Moutains Line train from Sydney Central Station to Katoomba Station, which cost me around 2h to go to there.
View from the train during the way to Katoomba
During the journey, beautiful views of Western Sydney's suburbs were abundant and they made 2h of train quite fast. Before going to Blue Mountains, I didn’t explore much of what to do there so I just got off at Katoomba Station and bought a ticket for Scenic World, which is a must-see destination when travelling to Katoomba.
Katoomba Railway Station
Initially, I didn’t know what is the Explorer Bus for Blue Mountains and I didn’t even know what did it look like during the tour so i just got my Scenic World ticket and used the local alternatives to get to there. Although I missed a wonderful chance to explore the town with Explorer Bus tour, it gave me a valuable time to explore the town by myself and a lesson for further opportunities if I have chance to come back. We can buy the tickets when we get off at Katoomba Station but I suggest to do it online before your trip. Here is the website:
For Scenic World only: https://www.scenicworld.com.au/tickets#udp
For Blue Mountains Explorer Bus tour: https://www.explorerbus.com.au/
However, after looking at many positive reviews, I suggest to purchase the ticket that includes both Bus tour and Scenic World ( Lyrebird Pass). which can be accessed here: https://explorerbus.rezdy.com/43429/lyrebird-pass-hop-on-hop-off-scenic-world
Blue Mountains Explorer Bus map
As a HotWheels collector, I spent some of my times to get to K-Hub, which is not too far from the town centre and I had a decent walk to explore the twon before catching the bus to Scenic World, which was my main target. Although the most popular activity here Scenic Sky Way was under maintanance so I didn’t have a chance to try it for the 2nd time ( my first time here was in 2018), it didn’t reduce my interests in trying other activities.
Starting with Scenic Railway, which is the steepest passenger railway in the world (Explore Scenic World, n.d.), it gave me a good view of the area when going down to Scenic Walkway, where I spent nearly an hour for myself to enjoy the natural. Below is my experience:
Scenic Railway experience
It was a little scary but fun journey when going down. Some people use this to going up again but I didn’t because I wanted to have a walk to Scenic Cable Way and going back from there. Scenic Walkway was very fun maybe it was a sunny day. I was able to explore my inner self and chill with the nature, which reduced my stress a lot. A map was provided at the entrance so I used that map as a walking guide before going back.
After spending an hour there, I went back to the top via Scenic Cableway, which was as interesting as the others experience here at Scenic World. The journey lasted for 2 minutes. I was able to have a closer view to the forest.
Scenic Cableway view from the top
That was my experience at Scenic World, which is great but the most exciting part of this journey is solo hiking. From Scenic World, I took a short walk up the hill to Eagle Hawk Lookout to see are there any good thing to see there. The view through the valley was spectacular there.
As this trip was scheduled to finish in a day so I didn’t have much time to explore all possible surrounding areas such as Ruined Castle or other lookouts. From Scenic Walkway, there is a road that guide us to Echo Point and other areas that are down the cliff ( Federal Pass Walking Track). Instead of taking the Federal Pass, I chose to take the Prince Henry Cliff walk, which has a difficulty of Moderate-Hard. Depends on the weather condition, the walking track will be neither normal nor closed or detour. When I visited the Blue Mountains, the condition was dry and the weather was really good for hiking.
I backed to Scenic World and took Katoomba Falls Access Track to the intersection , one will guide us back to Federal Pass called Round Walk and the other one is Prince Henry. The other one is a hard track and I didn’t prepare much for that. In addition, the that track closed so there wasn’t any option.
Direction Board from Scenic World
Scenic World Valley staion and Katoomba Falls Kiosk are on the same walking track and I had no problems in reaching Katoomba Falls. Here are the photos of the view that I took during this easy section.
During the my way as guided to Echo Point, I took a quick visit to Katoomba Falls Lookout before knowing that I had to go down.
Katoomba Falls top view
Katoomba Falls Lookout
After a while, I reached Duke and Duchess of York Lookout before going down to see the falls, which was peaceful and great as I felt closer and closer to the nature.
After spending 5 -10 minutes here I remembered, I continued to make my way to Scenic East Station, where I stood below the station at Cliff View Lookout
After that, I followed the track and passed through some lookouts, which had a gorgeous view of the valley. Climbing up down up down via a lot of stairs including a deep stair on the way, finally, I reached Echo Point. I spent 15 minutes there to break before taking the Three Sisters and Giant Stairway , which was my last destination on this journey.
Inside Echo Point Visitor Information Centre
Final walking track before heading to Katoomba Station, which was normal at first but became harder and harder when walking to the sister and Giant Stairway.
Entrance to Three Sisters & Honeymoon Bridge Walk
At this intersection, I chose the Three Sisters one and it guided me to the lookout before small and deep stairs to go down.
The Lookout before deep stairs
The grade 4 Walking track ( Difficult) starts from here. Below is the track to Honeymoon Bridge that guides us to the first sister. However, the bridge closed when I visited.
Deep Stairs to Honeymoon Bridge
Stairs to the first sister
From here, I took some photos before heading down through another steep stairs. At that time, I understood why it is called the Giant Stairway and why it grades 4. Grade 5 is the hardest because the difficulty is slighty harder than grade 4 and it covers a large distance that required navigation tool, first aid kit and others equipments I believe.
Giant Stairway no sound
After going down through narrow and deep stairs, I reached a comfortable part of the journey and saw the road to go down closed so I went back to the Echo Point Lookout and catched a local bus to Katoomba Station to end my journey here at the Blue Mountains.
There are many upcoming deep stairs and interesting part after my end point but I thought it was a good ending of my journey. After climbing these stairs to go back, I felt a little tired and my legs were frozen for a while. It was a fun trip and I spent most of my 2h during my way back to Sydney Central Station just for sleeping.
That was my solo experience at Blue Mountains National Park. I will probably visit Blue Mountains again if possible in the future. It was a fun trip. Have you ever been to here? What’s your experience? Share in the comment section.
Source:
Explore Scenic World. (n.d.). Scenic World. https://www.scenicworld.com.au/explore
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Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia