Arriving Down Unda!

As excited as we were to get to Australia, we were equally dreading the 24 hour travel day. The 15 hour flight from LA to Sydney sounded especially daunting! But now that it’s behind us and everything was on time, it all didn’t seem so bad in the end. We made it!

We planned the first leg of our trip as a road trip, so the first thing we did was pick up our car and drive a couple hours out of the city into the Blue Mountains. We arrived in Blackheath where we decided to spend a couple days hiking and trying to shake off the most extreme jet leg both of us have ever experienced.

And damn, driving on the left side of the road has been a REAL mindfuck.

Blackheath was a cute little mountain town with good bars, restaurants, and easy access to tons of beautiful lookouts and trails – it felt like the perfect first stop!

Since we were both up at 4am anyways, we took advantage of our first morning and got to watch a pretty spectacular sunrise at the Grand Canyon of the Blue Mountains. As someone who pretty much never wakes up until well after the sun is up, this was pretty special for me 🙂

After the sunrise, we hopped on a nearby trail that goes into the ravine for an early morning hike. We essentially had the trail to ourselves and it was fabulously green and lush. It was like walking through a cool, wet rain forest full of the sounds of birds and rushing water. We were both blown away!

From Blackheath, we continued north into the Hunter Valley – Australia’s famous wine region. Besides trying some wine, our main objective here was to see some kangaroos…and damn did we meet that objective! Alex booked a campsite that mentioned kangaroos hopping through the property, so we booked it and crossed our fingers. The property basically ended up being kangaroo meeting grounds! They were everywhere and they were hilarious. The way they hopped around, fought each other, stood on their tails, carried their babies in their pouches. They are such weird little creatures! We spent most of our time there kangaroo watching and loved every minute of it.

Along with kangaroo watching, we enjoyed exploring the Hunter Valley area. We did a little wine tasting at a local winery (spotted some kangas in the vineyard) and walked around some of the old, somewhat abandoned towns that were once booming coal mining towns of the mid- to late-1800s.