Warragamba Dam & Knapsack Viaduct

I always find it interesting to return to a place that I have previously visited. To reflect on how I have and my life has changed compared to my previous visit. Although I must admit it is something I am reluctant to do; the whole 'there is so much to do and so little time' mentality does kick in a fair bit.

Earlier last year, I made a visit to Warragamba Dam in the south-west of Sydney. Fast forward to almost 18 months later and I made another visit.






It was a fairly chilly Saturday morning despite the supposed high of 22 degrees. We had arrived close to midday and I was surprised by the lack of families / people at the dam.

Blue Mountains: Lawson Waterfall Circuit

A few weekends ago, I went to the Blue Mountains for a bushwalk. Although I have been to the Blue Mountains quite a few times now, there are a lot of areas that I haven't explored or even heard of! Whilst I was Googling for easy-ish day walks, I stumbled upon the Lawson Waterfall Circuit which sounded pretty intriguing - 3km walk which passes by 4 waterfalls.

Compared to the bushwalks at Wentworth Falls, Leura and Katoomba, my boyfriend and I were the only ones on the track! It was a very peaceful walk.

Central West Roadtrip: Stargazing at Blue Mountains

The last leg of my roadtrip was a little uneventful. As I didn't want to partake in the standard traffic jam back to Sydney associated with every public holiday, I wanted to stay for the night at a place reasonably close to Sydney.

Henry Lawson Statue at Glenfall. Henry Lawson was a writer and poet.

Cowra lookout

Blue Mountains

This post is from mid April and is about my trip to the Blue Mountains.

After breakfast at Henri Marc, we headed to Wentforth Falls in the Blue Mountains. The last time I visited was - surprisingly- in 2012! I hadn't actually realised it was that long ago! The aim for the day was to do a short walk at Wentworth Falls. I am a hiker and I love it; unfortunately Mr Paella is not quite the hiker / outdoor-sy kind of person. I don't mind it generally, however it does make it a little difficult when we are doing something together. Something that is deemed a Grade 1 (very easy) is right up his alley whereas I don't really look at any hike that is below a Grade 3 (moderate / hard). I enjoy hikes that are at least 9km round trip whereas he is more comfortable with 1km. For Wentworth Falls, we were just going to walk to the bottom and then back up the death stairs.

Riverina Roadtrip - Mount Wilson

This was my last day on my Easter trip (it has taken me a while to write all these posts...) and I knew that I would spend the rest of my trip driving back to Sydney. My aim was to beat the usual long weekend rush back and thus I aimed to hit Sydney at around midday.

First stop was heading to the highest point in Bathurst to watch the sunrise however I couldn't figure out how to get to the top of Mount Panorama and only managed to get to the bottom of it. It was such a gorgeous sunrise as the photos below show.

Blue Mountains Botanic Gardens

Sydney is slowly creeping towards summer and there has already been a couple days where it has been in the high 30s. Two Fridays ago it was actually 43°C which was horrible. But when the weekend rolls round, it is completely dreary. It has been raining or overcast almost every second weekend since I started my job. Perhaps it's a sign from above that fulltime work really isn't for me. I jest.

I have been feeling quite down for a while now. It's a combination of a few things but in essence, I just feel so trapped. I knew that it was going to rain but I decided to head out to the Blue Mountains. When I am travelling, I still go out as planned even if the weather is kind of crap and decided I need to adopt that mentality for my own weekends back in Sydney.

I hired a car from GoGet and was stuck circling the same few streets since I kept on missing the bloody ramp to the motorway. Seriously. It took me over 20 minutes before I was actually on my way. I'm not a confident driver. I rarely ... well more like never drive. I have driven twice since July and it was just to the shops and back. And back in July when I drove in South Australia, that was the first time in 5 years.

What amazes me about Sydney is the size of metroplitan Sydney. It just keeps growing and encompassing previous separate towns as suburbs of Sydney. For example, Richmond does not feel like Sydney. It feels very much like a large country town with historic buildings but it is a suburb of Sydney.






It was bucketing when I was in Sydney, but there was a crazy amount of fog once I arrived at the Blue Mountains.





There is meant to be a very pretty view of the Blue Mountains (See here). That being said, it was still very cool walking around the garden. Definitely had an eerie, if not spooky, kind of feeling. It was very foggy and it was drizzling.









To be honest, I haven't been to many places in the Blue Mountains. I've done Wentworth and Katoomba but the rest is unknown to me. I have always been a little reluctant to go to the Blue Mountains since it is a little boring but I think I will try to see more of the area. I miss seeing empty land and enjoy being away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

The Three Sisters

A month ago, my old manager had transferred to another store in Katoomba. A few co-workers wanted to surprise her so I joined as I did want to spend a day out. We woke up before the sun rose and caught the train from central. A pet peeve. I hate people who are late, anything longer than 5 minutes already irks me. But this girl who has been late every other time we were together was, once again, late. Normally it isn't that significant except as we were catching the train to Katoomba, there was only one train every hour. She missed the train and was late.








The two hour train ride wasn't overly long; it was pleasant. When we were 4 stops away, one of the coworkers really needed to go to the bathroom, however we didn't think that there was a toilet on the train so he got off at a station in the Blue Mountains. There wasn't a bathroom at the station and he ended up walking on the track before finding a porta-loo.




The rest of the coworkers and I waited at a cafe for the stragglers. It was cold in Katoomba. Well, it was actually quite chilly and the air was so much fresher and crisper.






As I was taking my shots of the Three Sisters, there was this tourist who asked me, "do you know the story of the sisters?" I said, "Yes. Do you know the story?" because sometimes people are overly helpful and just want to tell everyone what they know. He said that he didn't no. So I proceeded to tell him the two versions that I was taught.

1) There were three sisters who fell in love with the men from another tribe, however there was a battle and the father of the daughters wanted to protect them so he got an elder to turn them into stone, with the intention of turning them back to women after the battle. However the Elder died and they remained as stone formations.

2) There were three sisters who fell in love with the men from another tribe however the father wasn't happy with their decision and so turned them into stone to prevent them from being together. Elder died and then the sisters remained as stone formations.

After I told the story, the same tourist went, "well that's actually not true. The story goes like this: there were three sisters and they were called X, Y and Z (I can't remember what he said). Did you catch that? They were called X, Y and Z. And they were granted a wish to turn into swans however after 500 years as a swan, they would then turn into rock".

Firstly, that has to be the stupidest story I have ever heard. It sounds like some warped fairytale. Oh really, the sisters wanted to be swans? And if they were turned into rock, why didn't they resemble a rock in the shape of a swan? Secondly, Google didn't show me any story that sounded even remotely similar. And more to the point - and I was fuming- why did that tourist need to act as some hot-shot and correct me on a story. I don't even know what his game was; to correct people? Seriously. Why ask and lie and tell me that he didn't know the story, when he knew a story. My god. And all those Chinese tourists; there is something in life called manners and common courtesy. Learn some. You shove me with your shoulder, I will shove you back.

Though all that aside, it was lovely visiting the manager. She was so stunned and it was really nice being able to see her again. We had a lovely chat with her in the tea room. The best part was when the group of us couldn't quite turn off our 'work mode'. There was a couple and I only noticed them because the girl was dressed as the biggest bogan. White tank top, hair in top knot with a leopard turban type headband and leopard harem pants. All that she was missing were her Ugg boots, although of course she didn't have them as she stole a pair of shoes. Mind you, they were $6 canvas shoes. I don't even know. Actually, if I could understand why people steal $6-10 pair of shoes, then maybe I can also also understand why people steal one shoelace, not a pair, just one.

Wentworth Falls - Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains is region just outside of Sydney and approximately 2 hours away by train. My highschool friends and I travelled to Wentworth Falls for some bushwalking through various tracks in the area. This summer, the weather has been a bit temperamental - raining for weeks on end and having moderately warm temperatures for the rest. However, yesterday was a gorgeous sunny but relatively cool day which was perfect for bushwalking. We first started walking on the Charles Darwin Walk which was fairly easy path. It followed the Jamison creek and eventually we reached the top of Wentworth Falls. The look down was breathtaking and also scary as I am a little scared of heights. Despite the lovely weather, it had rained probably the night - if not day - before and hence the steps carved from rock were very wet and possibly slippery. walking down those incredibly steep stairs were a little scary, especially as you would be looking directly down at the trees hundreds of metres below.






The view from the bottom of Wentworth Falls was breathtaking and the spray of water was very refreshing after the steep descent.



This is probably my favourite shot from the entire day. For some reason, it reminds me a little of a scene from The Land Before Time




We then followed the National Pass and saw waterfalls such as Lodore Falls, Empress Falls and Sylvia Falls in the Valley of Waters. For our lunch break after a difficult climb, we took a break at one of the lookouts and there, I saw a Leura Water Skink.





After our break, we took a shorcut back to Charles Darwin Walk and went to the Weeping Rock. There we took off our shoes and waded in the water for over 30 minutes. The day was relaxing and provided a much needed break from Sydney and the life back there.