Katoomba Falls
Australia Travelog #41
Leura, NSW - Sat, 30 Dec 2023, 5:30pm
After lunch today- a gas station lunch with not-a-gas station views- we headed back through downtown Katoomba for a bit of shopping then back out to the trail for Katoomba Falls. Parking near the trailhead at 3:30pm was way tighter than this morning at 9am. Like, there was a park with 100-ish spaces across the street, and it was overflowing. Versus this morning, when we easily parked on the street right in front of the trail. Anyway, we lucked in to a parking spot near the trail, walked down past Reid's Plateau and Witches Leap, and into new territory.
Since I'm still walking on a sprained ankle- and frankly walking way too much on it- I decided hiking to the bottom of Katoomba Falls (and up again) was off the menu. Instead there was a great-looking viewpoint, the Underfalls Walk, than involved maybe one-third the ascent and descent. We started down steep stairs toward it and... oops, it was closed. D'oh!
Instead we continued a bit further down the main trail to Queen Victoria Lookout. From there we enjoyed a view of the full falls, both the upper tier and lower tier. It was a distance view, though. The Underfalls Trail would've lead us to a spot right at the foot of the upper falls.
On the way back up we passed some hikers coming out out the closed Underfalls trail. I asked if there was trail damage, as the sign on the barricades blocking the trail entrance indicated. "Nope," they basically answered. I asked Hawk to accompany me on the trail, but she was too law-abiding to go and I was too injured to want to try it on my own.
After we ascended back to the canyon rim we looped around to Katoomba Cascades.
Here were some much smaller falls, maybe 30' tall in total, with lots of people wading in the shallow pools at the bottom. A sign here also explained that Katoomba, originally spelled Kadumba, is an aboriginal place name meaning "Gully".
Welcome to the Gully!
Leura, NSW - Sat, 30 Dec 2023, 5:30pm
After lunch today- a gas station lunch with not-a-gas station views- we headed back through downtown Katoomba for a bit of shopping then back out to the trail for Katoomba Falls. Parking near the trailhead at 3:30pm was way tighter than this morning at 9am. Like, there was a park with 100-ish spaces across the street, and it was overflowing. Versus this morning, when we easily parked on the street right in front of the trail. Anyway, we lucked in to a parking spot near the trail, walked down past Reid's Plateau and Witches Leap, and into new territory.
Since I'm still walking on a sprained ankle- and frankly walking way too much on it- I decided hiking to the bottom of Katoomba Falls (and up again) was off the menu. Instead there was a great-looking viewpoint, the Underfalls Walk, than involved maybe one-third the ascent and descent. We started down steep stairs toward it and... oops, it was closed. D'oh!
Instead we continued a bit further down the main trail to Queen Victoria Lookout. From there we enjoyed a view of the full falls, both the upper tier and lower tier. It was a distance view, though. The Underfalls Trail would've lead us to a spot right at the foot of the upper falls.
On the way back up we passed some hikers coming out out the closed Underfalls trail. I asked if there was trail damage, as the sign on the barricades blocking the trail entrance indicated. "Nope," they basically answered. I asked Hawk to accompany me on the trail, but she was too law-abiding to go and I was too injured to want to try it on my own.
After we ascended back to the canyon rim we looped around to Katoomba Cascades.
Here were some much smaller falls, maybe 30' tall in total, with lots of people wading in the shallow pools at the bottom. A sign here also explained that Katoomba, originally spelled Kadumba, is an aboriginal place name meaning "Gully".
Welcome to the Gully!