RHH's photos with the keyword: blue mountains

The Grand stairway is in the Blue Mountains next to Wentworth Falls and takes you down 998 steps cut into sheer cliff 300 meters high. This was taken from the stairway, but I wish I had taken some photos that showed how steep this stairway is. At the time, however, I was focusing on getting down and not thinking much about photos.

Empress Falls is at one end of the National Pass trail through the Blue Mountains. We came back out of the Valley of the Waters near this falls, one of the most beautiful parts of a beautiful trail.

Not really a rose at all, this is a well-known Australian wildflower. When we found it along the National Pass trail it was growing tangled in other plants and shrubs, and there were not a lot of flowers open.

This is the trail we followed in the Blue Mountains from Wentworth Falls to Empress Falls. It is described in the New South Wales National Parks website as follows, "Built into the side of the cliff, the National Pass is a spectacular walking track offering unrivalled views of the many natural wonders of the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains National Park." It was everything it was promised to be and more.

This was the view from Echo Point in Katoomba, the last stop on our Australian trip. The formations on the lower left are the Three Sisters and the flat-topped mountain in the distance is Mount Solitary, all in the southern Blue Mountains. By the time we walked back to downtown Katoomba and had our evening meal there it was dark and we traveled in the dark back to Sydney to pack and get ready to leave next morning.

These were photographed in the Blue Mountains along Jamison Creek near Wentworth Falls and were the third Banksia species we found in Australia. They were at the peak of their bloom and were one of the highlights of our hikes in the Blue Mountains.

This is another photo from the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. After taking the train to Wentworth, we followed Darwin's Walk along Jamison Creek to Wentworth Falls and then went down the Grand Stairway to the bottom of Wentworth Falls. Jamison Creek eventually becomes Wentworth Falls, dropping 167 meters (614 feet) into the valley below.

On our last day in Australia we took the train from Sydney to the Blue Mountains and stopped first at Wentworth, where we followed the Charles Darwin Walk to the top of Wentworth Falls, took the grand Staircase down to the bottom of the falls and then hiked the National Pass trail along the cliffs to Sylvia Falls and Empress Falls before returning to Wentworth and then on to Katoomba.

Today was our last day in Australia and spent the day hiking in the Blue Mountains. We took the train to Wentworth this morning and hiked to Wentworth Falls (around 500 steps down a sheer cliff) and then hiked the spectacular National Pass trail to Empress Falls after which we took the train to Katoomba and walked to Echo Point from which this photo was taken. We had our evening meal at a Thai restaurant in Katoomba and then took the train back to Sidney.