Europe and Oceania 2023

We took a 2.5 hour train west from Sydney (away from the coast) to the Blue Mountains. We had very mixed feelings about our day.

Coming from the Pacific Northwest I’ve lived near/visited gorgeous places like Mt Hood, Mt Rainier, Columbia river gorge, Olympic mountain range, Grand Teton National park, Yellowstone, the Rockies (you get the idea). And I’ve learned … that’s hard to beat, and THOSE are mountains. And then of course hiking the Swiss and Austrian alps last year was just icing on the cake. I’ve definitely seen my share of “mountains”. So … for these to be called “mountains” seemed like a stretch. Jordan and I thought it was more like seeing the Grand Canyon’ish but covered in trees and vegetation. It was a gorge, more than mountains.

Regardless, it was pretty and unique, just not … mountains, in our estimation. (I have the same problem visiting “mountains” in South Carolina. Haha).

We did a hop on hop off bus that took us all around the gorge edge. There were 37 stops to pick from and dozens of hikes of all different difficulties. And there was also a Skyway that took us across a portion of the gorge, a steepest railway in the world that took you to the forest floor, an hour long hike on an elevated walkway path and then a cable car to get us back to the top. Those were really fun.

We hiked a bunch and saw lots of beautiful views. Other than Jordan coming down sick yesterday and not feeling the best, It was a pretty perfect day. ❤️😀

6.9 milesOkumaya devam et