Blue Mountains

We took the trip way back at the beginning of April, but I've only just now gotten all the photos and whatnot uploaded. Better late than never.

The Blue Mountains are some of the most scenic and beautiful in Australia. Most people visit for a day and see the touristy stuff - the "Three Sisters" and other rock formations along well paved and accessible trails.

We decided to try something different. The Six Foot Track. My roommate Carl hiked it before and said it wasn't so bad. How long of a trail is it? Oh, 45 kilometres? That sounds like a lot. It's not that bad? Okay, cool.

The Six Foot Track has some of the most diverse hiking terrain I've ever seen...we hiked uphill and downhill through mountains, plains, rainforest, and everything in between. We arrived at our starting point, Jenolan Caves. After walking around and exploring the outside of the caves, along with the Green Lake, we set out. Within the first 10 minutes of our hike (which were among the worst of our many, many uphill climbs along the trail), we were all a little tired. But we pressed onward. The first day we trekked for about 10 kilometres. Along the way, we came across some very friendly kangaroos, and we even got to feed them. We arrived at our campsite and got set up just as it was completely dark around 6PM.

Day Two began early in the morning. This was the big one...we were set to hike around 28 kilometres today so there was no time to waste. Today we ran across the largest cow I've ever seen, grazing in a plain we hiked through. We stopped for lunch at a small campground and continued on, walking a large distance denoted on the map as, "The Steep Section." Fortunately for us, it was downhill the way we were going, but still no picnic. We crossed some rivers on foot and encountered a huge suspension bridge, where we tested its weight limit. The sun was setting and we still had a long way to go, so we kept pressing forward. Eventually as it was getting fairly dark, we reached our campground and set up. A few of us hacked our way through the nearby bush looking for firewood, without much success. Needless to say, we were all exhausted so our fire needn't last long. We all went to sleep pretty early.

Day Three! Only 7 or 8 kilometres today, but at this point, we were all unbelievably sore from hiking around with heavy packs on our backs. Not too bad, except the last 1.5 were apparently pretty rough, rising from about 600m to 1000m in elevation by way of lots and lots of steps. We set out and discovered a small waterfall off the track, where we took a short break and got some fun pictures. Then we hit the seemingly endless stairs, and finally emerged at the top. We made it!! Time for pizza!

Hiking the Six Foot Track was honestly one of the most intense things I've done, but I'm really happy that I did it. I feel like I accomplished something, as unimportant as it may seem. The people were great, the atmosphere was great, the trip was great. Definitely one of my favorite times in Australia.

Pictures, pictures, pictures! I set up a Flickr Pro account, so you can check out all my photos from here on out at www.flickr.com/photos/ccheviron. For the Blue Mountains set, just click here.

Photos from Fall Holiday are coming soon - stay tuned.