We had an early start, and had to catch the 7am ferry in to the City, to be at the hotel meeting point at 7.20. Both feeling very tired, we slept on the coach for the first couple of hours.
The Blue Mountains tour was with the main tourist company in the area, the coach was modern and the tour guide was friendly and professional. We drove out of the city across the Harbour Bridge and he took us to the Fetherdale Animal Park for our first stop. When the bus was pulling into a space in the car park, one of the staff from the park walked out to greet us with a Joey – a little tiny weeny Wallaby baby! SO so cute!! Walking around the park, we saw lots of koalas, and got to stand close to one and stroke her back (Chloe), which was very very fluffy!
We also got to feed the Kangaroos! They were so gentle and Gav fed a little baby (roo) too! They had ice cream cones with grass in and the kangaroo’s held on to them with their little paws and munched on it all. Some were greedy and stole the whole thing.
We also saw our first Tasmanian Devil and Dingo!
After an hour we were back on the road to Echo Point, which is a view point high in the Jamison Valley over the Blue Mountains and the Three Sisters. You could see for miles over the lush vegetation on sandstone cliffs. The Three Sisters is a rock structure with three points (hence the name) and is very impressive to see. This is the iconic image of the Blue Mountains. Although impressive, we were not as impressed as the views we saw in New Zealand. Maybe we were spoiled there!
From here we drove to the town of Katoomba and to an attraction called Scenic World, which is based on the side of a gorge and has the world’s steepest railway, which has a decline of 52 degrees.
This was used for carting coal up the mountain side when the mines were active. The ride was only short and we all quite cramped into the seats so it was not great. Quite impressive though. Once at the bottom we walked around the forest area learning about the various trees (more trees!!) before catching the sky ride back to the top. Like a ski-lift that holds about 30 people! We got another good view over the valley and the Three Sisters.
Amanda took a trip back into town, which turned out to be a massive hike! She was looking for a company which had the same name as the one she works for in the uk – River Deep Mountain High. After 3km and several hills in the midday heat she found them, with enough time to take a snap and head back to the bus to move on to the next stop.
The driver took us to a small historical town called Leura which had traditional shops, including a sweet shop! There was also a Tea-pot museum! Amanda bought some sweets (of course) from the shop – some sherrrrberrrrt and a lolly!
From here we moved on to Wentworth falls which is meant to be great, however the best view is a 40 minute walk away. We only had 10 minutes so could only see the top of the falls from where we were.
On the way back to the city, the bus took us to the site of the Sydney Olympic games in 2000 and the impressive stadia that were built and are still used today! It was cool to see this as we had both watched it when it was on tv and when we were both still athletes. We learned about how they are still improving the facilities today.
We jumped off at Darling Harbour for some Pizza before working our way back to Lynda and Ron’s, both extremely tired from the very long day
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