Sydney, Australia-12/26/2017 -1/1/2018

Day 5-Blue Mountains National Park  -12/30/2017

Lincoln's Rock

Today we are taking an all day tour bus from Sydney to Blue Mountains National Park which is part of the UNESCO World-Heritage.  Blue Mountains National Park is a huge region of mountains ranges and even villages. there are endless trails, waterfalls and viewpoints scattered throughout the park. Along the way we will be stopping in many locations and will return to Sydney by boat.  We selected Oz trails as they seemed to have really good reviews.

The bus picked us up around 8:00AM in front of our hotel and the first stop is Lincoln's rock which is abut a 2 hours drive from Sydney.

Our second stop is Elysian Lookout which is about 15 minutes from Lincoln' rock.

 

 

We all got off the bus and our guide is leading us to Lincoln's rock, named after a local resident and mountaineer Lincoln Hall.  In 2007, Lincoln wrote the book "Dead Lucky" about his presumed death on Mt. Everest at 28,300 feet. 

 

Panoramic view of Lincoln's Rock.  This was previously called Flat Rock or Honeymoon Rock.

 

Lincoln's Rock is one fo those breathtaking viewpoints with a huge rocky area within the Blue Moutains National Park, previously known as Flat Rock or Wedding Rock.

 

The sheer drop and beautiful mountain vistas make for an awsome place to take pictures. 

 

You can approach the unprotected edge and if you are not scare,  and you can stand also really close to the edge.

 

From Lincoln's Rock is a vista of the breathtaking dense Jamison Valley and Creek,  which change color throughout the day as the sun and clouds move overhead.

 

This landscape is 1.5 miles long and 6.2 miles wide.  They were named by Lachlan Macquarie, the Governor of New South Wales from 1810 o 1821, as a tribute to John Jamison.  John was a Royal Navy physician and became a significant land owner and the country first titled free settler.

 

Beautiful sandstone cliffs.

 

Our guide told us that if we linger long enough, we will see the valley change colors as the sun moves across the sky.

 

Right now we are on top of large bed rock looking down.

 

To our surprise there are 2 wrecked cars down there.  Not sure how they got there as there are no road leading to this area.  Were they pushed from the top of the bed rock?

 

Jamison Valley is situated approximately 100 kilometers west of Sydney and a few kilometers south of Katoomba, the main town in the Blue Mountains.

 

93% of the 4,000 square miles of the greater Blue Mountains Area is forested with eucalyptus vegetation.  When the temperature rises, the oil of these eucalyptus trees evaporate into the air, casting a blue haze over the landscape.  This phenomenon gave the region its name.  It is estimated 100 eucalypt species grow in the Blue Mountains. 

 

 

How cool is this picture?  We are almost at the edge of the rock bed.  That's the further I'll go as I am scare of looking down from here.

There are people that would sit down with their feet dangling down of the cliff.  Too scary for me to do that.

 



The traditional inhabitants of the land in what is now known as the Jamison Valley are Aboriginal Gundungurra people who are estimated to have lived in the region for 40,000 years.

On the right what you see are symbols left by the Aboriginal people.

 

Our tour guide showing us how the Aboriginal Gundungurra people would rub their hands on the rock with a bit a water...

 

and that how the Aboriginal people will use to paint their face with.

 

 

Here our guide is showing the different colors that the rock will yield (orange and yellow here).

 

Elysian Rock

Our second stop is Elysian Rock which is about 15 minutes from Lincoln's Rock and located near Leura in the Blue Mountains National Park.

 

After parking the Bus it is a short walk to the look out.  Beautiful vegetation in this area.

 

The lookout is a fenced in area sitting on top of cliff edge.

 

 

This is a really small area and we were thankful that there are nobody else beside our group which is about 24 people.

 

From the lookout you get great view across the valley to Mount Solitary, the 'back' of the Three Sisters and to Narrow Neck.

 


 Really narrow area

Hoa and me at the edged of the lookout.

 

 

 

Our guide showed us were to look for the Three sisters but I cannot really figure out where it is from here.

 

 




 

 

We are now leaving the lookout and headed to Luera for lunch.

 

Leura

Our tour bus guide dropped us off in Leura, a small town close by.  Leura has many coffee shops, restaurants, boutiques and galleries.

I think we have an hour here so we just walked around town looking for a restaurant.

 

We did not want to go to a nice restaurant as there is just not enough time so we saw this cafe with a lot of people in there and we decided to have lunch here.

 

We ordered two Kangaroo burger, advertised as world Famous Kangaroo burger.

 

The burger is made with 100% Kangaroo meat served on  Bushmans charcoal bun.

 

Handmade relish, caramelized onions, cheese, beetroot, tomato, mixed lettuce and mayo, all on a Bushmans charcoal bun served with chips.

Very good burger!  Our first Kangaroo burger ever...

 

This girl( I forgot her name) was on the same tour bus as us and she was on her own.  She sat with us for lunch as she heard as speak English and from now to the end the hang out with us.

She worked for Amazon in Seattle so it is a small world as we told her we used to work there a long time ago..

 

 

NEXT...Scenic World Park

 

 

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