Mittagong

Australia is in the last month of autumn now and the temperatures are finally starting to drop here in Sydney. In my opinion, one of the best parts of autumn is the changing colour of the leaves. However, most of the native trees in Australia are evergreens rather than deciduous. Although there are a few around Sydney, I wanted to go somewhere which was known for their autumn leaves and that is how I ended up in the town of Mittagong in the Southern Highlands.







It took me three hours, via one bus and two trains, to reach Bowral, a larger town next to Mittagong. I was only in the town for 10 minutes before I left again on the train. In Bowral, the trees had already lost most of their leaves so I decided to head back one stop to Mittagong.

I had also wanted to visit the abandoned Mittagong Maltings factory. It was built in 1899 and was owned by Tooth & Co before it closed in 1981. I have always wanted to explore abandoned buildings and this one seemed quite easy to access from what I read online.












It was very eerie. It is next to the train line however slightly outisde from the main streets of the town which made it quite isolating. I also went by myself (which is kind of a big no-no but I couldn't get around that problem). I went up one flight of wooden stairs (yikes) to peek into the first floor which wasn't very interesting. For a brief moment, I did consider climbing another flight however I saw that the landing had fallen through (although the actual stairs were intact) and decided against it. Safety first. What was interesting was that in one of the main buildings, equipment had been left behind including what seemed like a wooden conveyor belt and some machinery. I was reckless enough to climb up a reasonably high wooden ladder (why was everything wooden) but there wasn't anything interesting to see that would have justified me potentially injuring myself over. Overall a very cool experience but I think I will have to find a friend next time.









Now onto the main reason why I travelled to Mittagong. The leaves! The trees on the main street had already lost their leaves but the side streets were still super pretty!









I also went to Mount Gibraltar which is a whopping 863m above sea level. It is a collapsed volcanic core and is thought to have formed 150 million years ago. Mount Gibraltar is also the highest point between the Illawarra Coast and the Great Dividing Range. There were so many large estates (yes estates) and they were incredible although it was a little awkward that I was just walking on the shoulder of the road.