Katoomba Falls

Katoomba Falls is in the heart of the Blue Mountains. For those who don’t know this delightful area of New South Wales, it is an hour or so west of Sydney by car or train. They’re not mountains, of course; Australia doesn’t really have what the rest of the world knows as mountains. Sorry but it’s true. They’re actually an eroded plateau. The westward settlement of New South Wales was held up for many years as explorers couldn’t find their way through dead end, sheer-sided valleys – until someone finally figured out you could just walk over the uneroded caprock.

The settlement of the area led to the strange geographical quirk where all the towns are on top of the plateau, and the wild lands are below. It’s rather counter-intuitive until you get used to it.

Katoomba Falls is one of the eastern escarpment’s major waterfalls. It drains from a small catchment in and around the town of Katoomba and tumbles in two leaps directly over the escarpment wall into the deep forest below. You can view it at many points: from above, from various points on the way down and from below – and, as a bonus, from a cable car.

Another bonus: it’s just down the road from the Three Sisters, the Blue Mountains’ premier attraction. In fact, from one vantage point it’s possible to get both in the one photo. It’s also only a short distance from the Valley of the Waters, which we have been featuring these last few weeks. Because these waterfalls drain small catchments they are very vulnerable to low flow. That said, of the three tall waterfalls in the area – Katoomba, Wentworth and Govett – Katoomba Falls probably has the best flow. Go after rain if you can.