Day 33: Three Sisters & Pool of Siloam

Kilometres: 84km

Diesel: $91.21

Food: $53.76

Ice: 0

We woke up this morning and watched as our late-arriving neighbours climbed from their swags, efficiently made a fire and cooked up a serve of bacon, eggs and hash browns on their grill plate. Looking only about 18 or 20 years of age, they were obviously seasoned campers. After our breakfast of, what I’m sure was equally delicious muesli, we were on our way.

One of the most famous spots in The Blue Mountains would have to be the Three Sisters. We arrived to find parking ticket machines so instead parked one street further back and wandered on up. The parking machines were just the beginning. This place was a theme park. An endless stream of buses arrived and went carrying an endless stream of tourists with selfie sticks. In fact, as we drew closer to the crowded viewing platform the only way to know which direction the sisters were, was to look where everybody had their backs facing. They all stared up at their camera, held the perfect distance from their face by their selfie stick, snapped the perfect pic and were on their way. To add salt to the wound, who was standing next to us as I looked out over the valley but the noisy neighbours we had moved away from last night. Get me out of here! In an attempt to lose the crowds we made our way down to another viewing platform, a short walk away. Down some steep steps we lost none of the crowd but found some pretty bloody irritating French tourists who yelled, squealed and had decided that the narrow path was for them and them alone. I’m sure my short fuse had absolutely nothing to do with the time of the month I was currently battling but Chris decided it was safer for everybody to get me the heck out of there.

We stopped for a quick lunch at a tiny waterfall and watched as the buses of tourists went past. I thought they looked like cattle, loaded onto trucks on the way to the slaughter house. Their expressionless faces peered out the window with seemingly no care for where they were going or where they had been. We needed to get further away from the masses.

I had read about a swimming hole (always a good way to cheer me up) so we headed there. The Pool of Siloam is only a short walk from the carpark. However, there’s a lot of down and then, once you’re sufficiently cool from a dip in the waterfall, a lot of up. 392 steps to be exact. Well, ish. I kind of lost count at one point. Despite the pool lacking in water somewhat, the waterfall was still flowing enough to get wet and that’s all I needed.

We grabbed a few groceries in Katoomba then decided it was time to park up for the evening. We checked our Mt York Campground but it had a super weird vibe. There were couches, sacks of goon (see urban dictionary if unsure) and just a fair bit of mess. It really wasn’t our scene. Instead we drove down a gravel road to Lockyer’s Track Campground where we parked up near a combie. Much better.

We made dinner in the bushes and it was incredibly peaceful. Another guy turned up and pitched his tent and we heard…nothing. Ahhhh the serenity.