Blue Mountains National Park

Barely a couple of hours inland from Sydney, the land rises into a sandstone plateau cut by gorges so deep and sheer that early colonists took a quarter of a century to find a way across. Blue Mountains National Park protects the heart of this country: more than 260,000 hectares of cliffs, waterfalls, hanging swamps and eucalypt forest stretching along the eastern flank of the Great Dividing Range. Seen from the rim, ridge after ridge fades into a soft blue distance, a colour usually explained by the fine haze of oil given off by the eucalyptus trees, and it gave the range its name.

Despite the name, these are not true mountains but an uplifted plateau, raised around 50 million years ago and then carved by rivers such as the Grose, the Coxs and the Wollangambe into a maze of valleys. The plateau tilts gently from about 1,100 metres near Mount Victoria down to under 200 metres around Glenbrook, while its highest point, Mount Werong, reaches 1,215 metres in the remote south. Between Wentworth Falls and Blackheath the cliffs drop several hundred metres into the Jamison and Grose valleys, and waterfalls such as Bridal Veil Falls at Govetts Leap tumble off the escarpment. Above Katoomba stand the Three Sisters, a trio of sandstone pillars and the best-known landmark in the range; a popular legend tells of three sisters turned to stone, and the formation was declared an Aboriginal Place in 2014.

The park was gazetted in 1959, growing out of a campaign launched in 1932 by the bushwalker and conservationist Myles Dunphy, and in 2000 it became the central piece of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, recognised for its extraordinary range of eucalypts, around 13 per cent of all species in the world. Gullies of temperate rainforest shelter plants that descend from the flora of Gondwana, and the park supports rare animals such as the Blue Mountains water skink and the regent honeyeater. A network of historic walking tracks, many of them listed on the state heritage register, threads along the clifftops and down into the valleys.

Getting there

The park wraps around the towns of the City of Blue Mountains, about 14 km from its nearest edge, and its eastern boundary lies roughly 80 km west of central Sydney. The nearest airport by distance is Bathurst (BHS), about 75 km away, but the usual gateway is Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD). The Blue Mountains Line runs from Sydney Central through Glenbrook, Wentworth Falls, Leura, Katoomba and Blackheath, with lookouts and trailheads a short way from the stations.