Hill End

I mentioned that I had wanted to visit Hill End during my Easter road trip, however due to time constraints I didn't end up going. As I was roughly in the area, I decided to head there on my second and last day.

I woke up to the valley completely surrounded in fog and it was just breathtaking. Stupidly, I had forgotten to remove my camera battery from my camera and in the -4 degree temperatures overnight, it had drained completely. D'oh! I moved the battery to my pocket on my shirt to warm it up and eventually had the battery partly restored which is why I still have photos!









It was so cold and throughout my drive to Hill End, it was hovering between -2 and 0 degrees. Very very chilly! What was beautiful was seeing steam from the ground due to the sun warming up the air. Very very cool!

Hill End is a former gold mining town and is now classified as a historical site. Back in it's heyday, it had a population of 8000 and now it has 200 residents.







I visited Kissing Point lookout and was amazed by what I saw.








On the way back to Sydney, I wanted to stop at Newnes (an abandoned mining village that is now part of a national park). However I didn't make it; the road was a fire trail that was very very ridged and around 5km away from the Newnes I was genuinely concerned that a) I would run out of fuel since I was quite low and b) my car would get stuck. Alas, I turned around and headed back to Sydney via Lithgow.



I popped in at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden since it was sunny which was very unusual for me! There were so many people; a stark contrast to the emptiness of the country roads that I had become accustomed to.



I had such a great weekend trip. Despite only going for two days, it was exactly what I needed to feel refreshed after quite a few weeks of stress at work.

This was my eighth trip as part of #take12trips. To see previous trips please click here.