I loved my first scenic hike of the Giant Staircase in the Blue Mountains, following up the view of the Three Sisters at sunset was going to be difficult but the promise of a five hour hike to see Wentworth Falls sounded promising. Ross said this hike would be just three and a half hours, so at five hours his estimations more on target!

The hike to Wentworth Falls is actually much like the hike that ends in the Giant Staircase but this part of the mountains is simply full of waterfalls everywhere you look.  If we passed a dozen on the first hike we passed two dozen on this hike under the strong bright sunshine that shared faceted rainbows on all descending droplets of water.

We actually came across Wentworth Falls within the first two hours of the hike.  What was really neat though is that the trail is structured so that we actually hiked across each section of the waterfall first.  Then, when we reached the bottom of the rainforest we were able to look up and see the three individual sections of waterfall all lined up and feeding into each other.  It’s hard to see in the picture but another rainbow was actually visible through the mist of the lowest section.

The waterfalls were really quite spectacular and we were able to get right up next to every part of the waterfall – that was one of the neatest parts – to feel the mist of the waterfall spray our face as we hopped on stones to get to the other side of the river.

Naturally, though, the high of the waterfall experience and chatting with my hiking partner meant that we missed our turn off and found ourselves lost…again. This time the wrong path we choose was actually a mostly unused path and we found our selves sloshing through ankle deep mud, walking actually through and under waterfalls (not as cool as it sounds), and teetering pretty close to the edge of cliffs (this is the point where my dad has a heart attack when he reads this!).

I think it was about the time that I fell (and boy did I fall HARD! I have the two really huge bruises on my thigh to prove it!) and slid down a set of wet rocks that we figured we were lost and on the wrong path and likely to kill ourselves if we didn’t turn around.

This is the point in the story where I admit that I am 100 percent directionally challenged and I thank the universe that I was with a guy.  We argued a bit about which way to go to meet up with the right path…and if you know me it’s not too hard to imagine me arguing over this!…and in the end he was right.  He managed to get us back to town, onto the train, and safely back to the hostel – all with darkness slowly encroaching.

By the time we got back we both acknowledged that it was a good thing we heeded the warnings – we were told by Ross to 1) never hike alone and 2) tell somewhere where we’re hiking and when we expect to return.  I’ll add a third to that and note that I now see the wisdom in carrying a compass!

Oh – if you haven’t found it yet, there are photo galleries with many more beautiful photos of the waterfalls and pictures from my RTW trip!