A young Sydney-based teaching student who died after slipping 20 metres down a waterfall knew the dangers of her favourite Blue Mountains track.
The 21-year-old Singaporean national Cheng Shi Min, known as Angel, sustained head and chest injuries when she slipped down Empress Falls near Wentworth Falls on Tuesday afternoon.
The avid bushwalker had taken her boyfriend, named in the media as Henry Yendle, and her father on the Valley of the Waters walking track, which she'd previously trekked solo.
"Out alone hiking. It was awesome," she wrote on Facebook in January last year, also attaching photos from the popular walking track including several from Empress Falls.
In a detailed blog from that day Angel said the trek was "definitely not for the faint hearted".
"Compared to katoomba, wentworth fall trails are much more dangerous. Like if I trip, that's it. I'm going to fall down the valley. Being alone, that's a little ... worrying," she said.
"So always say hello and hope people remember you if there's ever a 'have-you-seen-this-person search'."
Ms Cheng said the track wasn't well signposted.
"So ... you just kinda have to know your way around. Or guess your way around," she said.
She returned to Wentworth Falls in March with her parents and friends, and again on Tuesday when she took her boyfriend and her dad, who had just arrived from Singapore.
Mr Yendle told Fairfax Media his girlfriend been peering over the top of the falls when she lost her footing and fell.
"I rushed down, along with her father, as quickly as we could. I tossed basically everything out of my pockets and jumped in the pool and I found her lying face-down in the water. I flipped her over as quickly as possible and tried to pull her out," he said.
"We were lucky that there were a few people nearby. I yelled for an ambulance. They rushed up and we tried for maybe 20 minutes to pull her out of the water, and it was freezing."
It took an hour for paramedics to arrive on foot as strong winds prevented a helicopter from winching her out.
It then took several hours for Ms Cheng to be carried out of the bushland on a stretcher.
She was taken to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition but died early on Wednesday.
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