Our Blue Mountain Hideaway: World Cup 2018 Russia

Our Blue Mountain Hideaway 

The final part of our Australian road trip odyssey was to travel back towards Sydney through the Blue Mountains National Park, staying for 2 nights in the very heart of the park in Katoomba. We have seen a lot of dusty outback on this trip and now it was time to head back towards the coast and see something a bit different. We knew that the scenery would change significantly but what we had overlooked was that it would also be a lot cooler in the mountains and as we got closer to our destination, both a light drizzle and the temperature started to fall.  We arrived at our campground in the half-light of late afternoon and did some much-needed laundry before heading to get a glimpse of the Blue Mountains before sunset. It was cold & wet but it was not disappointing....

The following morning was brighter than the previous evening, but still in single digits on the temperature scale when we awoke, and so we got up early to make the most of the day. Our campground was literally on the edge of the plateaux overlooking a series of deep canyons and the impressive Mount Solitary, and just around the corner from Scenic World, a sort of amusement park for nature-lovers, which is where we decided to head.

Scenic World has a couple of interesting attractions; firstly it has the steepest railway in the world, first built by coal miners in the late 1800’s; secondly it has an impressive cable car that swings out over the deep valley floor; and it has a cableway that descends the 270 metres down to the forest in the valley below. When you get down to the forest there are a bunch of elevated walkways you can take that wind through some very impressive and untouched scenery which has not changed since Jurassic times. Fiona & I had a heap of fun spending the morning riding down the

cableway, doing the forest walks below and then coming back up on the railway before shooting off to do the cable car over the Katoomba Falls. After lunch, we did it all again, but this time in the reverse order, going down the railway, (quite a different experience to coming up the railway, let me tell you), and back up the cableway , we even threw in a few more cheeky rides down the railway for good measure before calling it a day and heading back to the van for our last night.

The Blue Mountains area was awesome, and I think it would have been nice to be able to stay another night, but we had to pack up our stuff and clean up the van before driving into the heart of Sydney to return it. It was another overcast and damp morning when we awoke, but we had a cup of tea, used up the last of our breakfast cereal and dug out our backpacks and started the packing process. We were all set by 10:00am and had plenty of time before we need to start the trip to Sydney, so in good kiwi fashion, we stopped off in town for a second breakfast of pancakes,... Yum.

The Camper return location was not far from Sydney Airport, where we had a room booked at an airport hotel, in preparation for our 6am flight the next day. The drive into Sydney got progressively worse, both in terms of weather, it started raining hard, and the traffic was just mental. I guess if you swan about in a van in the outback, where you wave pleasantly to passing drivers because you just don’t see that many of them, driving into Sydney in the rain on a Tuesday morning in a 7m long camper van, things are going to feel a bit stressful, and don’t worry, they were....  The only time that I felt at risk throughout the whole of the 3,700kms that we drove was the last 15km in Sydney traffic, which is something I don’t wish to repeat in a hurry....  But we made it safe & sound, and regretfully handed back the keys to what had been our home for the past 2 weeks.

Overall the van had been very comfortable and was fully equipped with everything we could possibly want, and more. We found it quite spacious inside and we also enjoyed using the outside space, (with provided table & foldable chair), with enthusiastic use of the roll-away outside grill for almost all of our cooking. We are going to miss our rolling home, and I would most definitely recommend & encourage people to hire this sort of camper for any extended trips to Australia its a great way to see the country, (skip rainy days in Sydney), and I feel certain that this will not be the last time we do this. It is expensive, but you get what you pay for.

We checked-in to our airport hotel, (literally 3 minutes walk from Departures), used up the last of Australian cash in the hotel sports bar, and hunkered down for an early night, as we had to be up at around 3:00-4:00am to make our flight for the next part of our Adventure.... Russia, here we come...