The Blue Mountains are a different place before nine in the morning. Mist sits in the valleys and burns off in front of you, the light comes in sideways along the escarpment, and the lookouts that will be three-deep by lunchtime are completely empty.
These are the walks we recommend to guests willing to set an alarm. All of them are within a short drive of our homes, and all of them are better at first light than at any other time of day.
Short and spectacular
If you want the payoff without the commitment, these take under an hour and put you straight onto the cliff edge.
- Lincoln’s Rock, Wentworth Falls: a flat five-minute walk to an enormous open shelf of rock facing east. The best sunrise in the mountains and the easiest to reach.
- Pulpit Rock, Blackheath: a short descent to a stacked lookout that projects into the Grose Valley. Handrails, steep steps, extraordinary view.
- Cahills Lookout, Katoomba: quiet, west-facing, and the one to save for a still afternoon rather than dawn.
An hour or two
Long enough to feel like a walk, short enough to be back for breakfast.
- Prince Henry Cliff Walk: follows the escarpment between Katoomba and Leura with lookouts the whole way. Walk it in either direction and turn back when you have had enough.
- Charles Darwin Walk, Wentworth Falls: an easy, mostly level track along Jamison Creek from the village to the top of the falls, with boardwalk over the swampy sections.
Half a day, and worth it
One walk in the mountains stands above the rest, and it is the reason a lot of people keep coming back.
- Grand Canyon Track, Blackheath: a three to four hour loop that drops into a genuine rainforest canyon, past overhangs and ferns and a creek you cross several times, then climbs back out to the clifftop. Steep, damp, occasionally dark, and one of the finest short walks in Australia.
Before you go
A few things worth knowing, particularly in the cooler months when these walks are at their best.
- Check track conditions: NSW National Parks closes sections after heavy rain or rockfall, and closures can last months.
- Dress for the escarpment: it is colder at the lookouts than at the house, and cliff-edge wind makes it colder again.
- Proper shoes: the canyon tracks are wet and uneven year-round.
- Tell someone: phone reception drops out below the clifftop on most of these walks.
Ask us when you book and we will tell you which of these is closest to your home and what the tracks are doing that week.
