We went for a day driving trip up to the Blue Mountains yesterday. This is a World Heritage Area right on Sydney’s doorstep and contains some beautiful scenery.

There are just two roads out of Sydney to the west. We took the lesser travelled Bells Line of Road and turned off to the tiny village of Mount Wilson, where I’d never been before. It turned out to be tiny indeed, with just a few residential properties, a small church, and a Bush Fire Brigade building. No shops, no post office, nothing. The main reason for going there is to admire the beautiful gardens that many of the residents keep, and let open for public viewing. We dropped in at one, Windy Ridge, but being winter it wasn’t at its best. There were a few flowers out, but most of it was just various shades of green and brown. It was still interesting and would clearly be a wonder in spring.

We also stopped in at the Cathedral of Ferns for the short walk through luscious rainforest populated by enormous tree ferns, and then at Wynne’s Lookout for a view over part of the National Park.

From there we drove over to the Great Western Highway (the other route west from Sydney) and grabbed some pies for lunch at Mount Victoria, before heading out to Hargrave’s Lookout on the Shipley Plateau, south of Blackheath. The view from there is shown in the panorama at the top of this post. I’d not visited this spot before, but I’ll definitely be going back. It has possibly the best view of the Megalong Valley and Blue Mountains National Park regions that I’ve ever seen from any lookout spot.

On the way home, we popped in at Katoomba for some afternoon tea. I spotted a wine shop there and found some interesting regional NSW stuff. I bought 4 bottles: a late-picked Verdelho from Cowra, an ice wine from Orange, a bottle of spiced mead(!), and a bottle of hot chili wine – no grapes involved, it’s made entirely from chilis! The woman behind the counter saw me looking bemusedly at the bottle and offered me a taste. Wow… I had to buy a bottle after that. More details later when I give it a proper tasting.

Tags: blue mountains

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