Blue Mountains: Sydney residents escape to this World Heritage wilderness daily

The Blue Mountains, the sandstone plateau and gorge country 80 kilometres west of Sydney that was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Greater Blue Mountains Area in 2000, provides Sydney with the accessible wilderness escape that a city of six million people requires and that the train from Central Station to Katoomba in under two hours makes available to Sydney residents who can leave the car behind for the mountain experience. The mountains' eucalypt oil-laden blue haze that gives the range its name and its distinctive visual character, the dramatic cliff edges, and the depth of the gorges that the Jamison Valley and the Grose Valley display from the Echo Point lookout at Katoomba, provide the natural spectacle that makes the Blue Mountains the most visited day trip from Sydney.

The Three Sisters at Echo Point, the sandstone rock formation that the Katoomba lookout frames in the classic Blue Mountains viewpoint that appears on more postcards and travel photographs than any other single Blue Mountains image, provides the focal point for the tourist concentration at Katoomba that supports the Katoomba Street café and restaurant strip, the Scenic World gondola and railway, and the accommodation that makes the Mountains accessible for the overnight and weekend visitor who wants more than the day trip allows. The Echo Point lookout's crowding at peak times reflects the popularity of the viewpoint but also the limitation of a single iconic viewpoint for distributing visitors through the broader national park area.

The walking tracks of the Blue Mountains, from the short lookout walks accessible from Katoomba's main tourist precinct to the multi-day Six Foot Track and the Grand Canyon Circuit, provide the range of walking experiences that different visitor capabilities and ambitions require. The Grand Canyon Circuit at Blackheath, one of the most spectacular and accessible half-day walks in the mountains, threads through the rainforest-filled canyon that the sandstone cliffs frame in the intimate scale that contrasts with the grand panoramas of the Katoomba lookouts.

Leura and Blackheath, the smaller mountains towns north and south of Katoomba on the Great Western Highway and the rail line, provide the alternative villages for the visitor who wants less crowded equivalents of Katoomba's attractions. Leura's garden heritage, expressed in the private gardens that the Mountains Boutique Tourism program showcases, and Blackheath's restaurant scene that has earned a reputation for quality disproportionate to the village's size, make the wider Mountains village circuit a more rewarding experience than Katoomba alone.