Blue Mountain Tour

The first day in Sydney was really only an evening which was a bit rainy. We contented ourselves with a light supper in the lounge and the an earlier evening as we had a 6:30am pick up for our tour the next day.

I am not sure when I have seen a more dramatic sunrise.

Our tour included a stop for morning tea. Dale decided that the hot chocolate looked to good to pass up

As you can see the scones went over very well

We were lucky to find a tour that only did small groups. We had eight people including our driver/guide.

Our first stop after tea was at a lookout called King’s table in the blue mountains. It was a place the men of the native tribes would meet. The woman had a spot several hundred feet back from the males.

Then we drove through a a village on our way to our next stop

This place was a scenic private area with lots of views of the Three Sisters

We took a tram down to the walkways on the forest floor

It was a steep look down

Their was an nice boardwalk through the forest. It was a subtropical rainforest. The land had all been clear up until thirty years ago for mining. Things grew back fast!

The fern trees grew huge and many were over 6 feet high

Up until thirty years ago, the entire area was a cutdown area for coal mining

Here is a statue commemorating the miners

There are still old coal carts laying around as the forest reclaims it’s rightful place

Some of the tunnels are still there 

As well as the coal car use to bring the coal our

There was a nice areas with information signs and you could see some of the seams of coal still

This is the original railway they used to haul the coal up to the top.

This is the train they run people up in now

It has one of the steepest inclines of any train in the world at a 55% incline

We then took a cable suspended tram out over the drop off

It had a glass bottom 

And sides for great views

Next we drove a short distance from there to take a short hike to a photo spot of these falls

Here are the falls. The country here is very rugged with lots a long drops 

This picture isn’t the best, but all the white are cockatoos 

Here is the falls at another short walk we took

This was our last water feature we stopped at

This small falls and cascades we hiked to were the only one we got up close to

Our guide walked in the shallows and brought back a couple of rocks 

He showed us how some of the rocks the natives used them to make colored marks on themselves

We then went to another lookout to get some more panoramic shots

This is the famous Three Sisters rock formation of the blue mountains. In the US we would call them mesas

They were called the blue mountains because 90% of the trees are a variety of eucalyptus trees. The tress give off moisture to the air causing it to have a blue tint in the sunlight, when viewed from a distance.

Here is a diagram of the area

We had a late lunch at a nice small Thai restaurant and Dale had some of the ginger beer recommended 

The parrots in the cherry blooms was a strange sight for me both that it is spring here and the parrots in the wild

The parrot in the right tree was so fun to watch as he was picking the blossoms and dropping them to the ground. You can see he had been at work for awhile

The cockatoos are like sparrows where we were. They were everywhere 

Our last stop before we started our trip back into Sydney proper was a Australian Animal park.

The guys above are wild dingoes 

It was feeding time so many of the animals were enjoying a meal

I wished I had purchased something to feed the animals when this guy came up to me. Look at that face, I felt bad disappointing him.

There were hundred of native birds, it amazes me the colors of them

They even had some of the fairy penguins from the south of Australia 

I got a look at a wombat

One of the bigger Kangaroo 

When I was a child a knew a song about this bird

Here is some info about the Kookaburra

Of course the koala. Several places have offered pictures with them, but out time has been so short in each place, I decided I would rather spend my time viewing what’s there, than standing in lines for $25 pictures 

Some of us had time to just relax, but our tours were pretty fast moving

This guy intrigued me

I had never seem something like him before. He reminded me slightly of a porcupine

Mom and junior were out hopping around. They had areas people where asked not to go into so they could rest. But they also  were where you could feed and pet them.

Another brightly colored bird

We took a harbor ferry back from our tour to Sydney. This place was so cool, I just had to get a shot. One of the locals told me it was where they filmed scenes for the 2013 Great Gatsby film. It is a rehab center normally 

The opera house as we cruised under the Sydney Bridge 

The Sydney skyline as we came into the ferry dock. We walked back to our hotel and had a lovely dinner and relaxing evening.