Australia: Tour of the Blue Mountains

Despite knowing that we'd be ringing in the New Year the night before, we booked a tour of the Blue Mountains that started at 7:30 New Years morning. We decided we could sleep in at home and didn't want to waste our last day in Sydney. Others must have shared our sentiments because there were quite a few people at the hotel breakfast.

As you may know, Ashley isn't exactly the easiest person to wake up. However, she hopped right out of bed when Nate reminded her that she would get to pet a koala today.

Rob, our tour guide from Sydney Great Escapes, picked us up at our hotel. The company specializes in smaller sized group tours and our tour only had two other people on it. The Blue Mountains are a mountain range located about 1.5 hours west of Sydney and derive their name from the blueish haze produced from the oil emitted from the forest of eucalyptus trees. Our day started at Featherdale Wildlife Park, which is on the way to the mountains. As promised, we were the first to arrive at the wildlife park so we had the animals to ourselves for awhile.

The front area of the park is like an Australian petting zoo. As soon as we stepped through the gates, we were greeted by wallabies on the pathway. Rob picked some leaves for us to feed to the wallabies and encouraged us to pet them. From this point forward, Ashley had a giddy grin plastered across her face.

After the wallabies, we entered the, koala section of the park. They had some koalas in eucalyptus displays, but more importantly they had one available to pet and take pictures with. The koala happily snacked on her leaves while we took turns taking pictures of us petting her.

After the koalas, we were handed orange ice cream cones filled with greenery and pellets for the kangaroos. The kangaroos were initially slow and hesitant, but soon approached us after we entered their area. 

They were much smaller than we were expecting, but Ashley's first cone was still pulled out of her hands as we realized that they used their upper limbs to grasp.

With a mutual level of comfort, we spread out and fed the kangaroos for a while. It was difficult to isolate a kangaroo from the emus also in the feeding area, but we finally tempted a few away from the main group.

The rest of the wildlife park was more of what you would expect of a zoo but focused only on Australian land animals.   Some of our favorites were a very large saltwater croc, wombats, and blue penguins (also known as little penguins). We actually had a chance to see blue penguins in the wild later in the trip, so Ashley read every sign she could to learn more about them.

Unfortunately, the Tasmanian devils were hiding while we were there. However, we did learn that Lily, our puggle at home, was going to one day grow up to be an Echidna.

After 90 minutes at Featherdale we were again on our way towards the blue mountains. Rob took us via a route that is not heavily frequented by tour buses as he provided more information on the area.  Rob had grown up in the area and had been a volunteer fire fighter for 30 years, so he was very knowledgeable and knew of lookouts that most would miss.

The blue mountains were a plateau carved out by wind and rain and not a result of an upward thrust due to tectonic shifts.  There are sheer cliffs over 1000 feet high, with eucalyptus trees on top and a temperate forest down low.  No river runs through it, and the topography and harshness of the environment prevented westward expansion of the Sydney colony for almost 50 years.

We did two hikes along narrow, unmarked "trails" to viewpoints overlooking valleys and cliffs.  At the first stop, Rob began lobbing stones down the path in front of us in order to scare snakes from the path.  The brown snake, red bellied black snake, and tiger snake all lived in this environment and were on the world's most venomous list.  We mostly stared at the ground and walked very slowly after he told us of the locals.

It was also much drier than we had expected, and Rob informed us that they were beginning bush fire "season."  Before the trip, we were both expecting this to be Australia's Smoky Mountains, but very little water was present.  Unlike National Parks in the US, few formal hiking paths or facilities were available, limiting time in the bush (and encounters with deadly snakes).  The park service believes that building and maintaining trails and facilities is detrimental to the environment, so a minimalistic approach is taken.  Rob even mentioned that a good number of hikers get lost on the trails each year because they mistake a wombat path as an unmaintained trail.

After lunch we visited Scenic World near Katoomba.  This is the place just about every tourist to the Blue Mountains will see and experience (and pay $25 a person).  There are two cable cars, one crossing a canyon with expansive views of the Blue Mountains.  The second is more of large gondola that takes you down into the temperate forest in the valley. 

Once on the valley floor, there are boardwalks leading through tree ferns and the forest.  Depending on the path you take, you could walk for 10 minutes or an hour. The valley floor was more what we were expecting from the Blue Mountains, with a greater variety of plants and animals, similar to a temperate rainforest.

The world's steepest railway at 52 degrees can take you back up to the top (or down).  We got convinced to take a picture at the demo train, which was built to scale and steepness.

Rob had told us to ride this up, but the seats only face downward.  There are no seat belts, so you literally have to brace yourself with your feet and grip the "cage" above your head or risk sliding out of your seat. The ride was less than two minutes, and the famous rock formation called Three Sisters greeted us at the top of the railway where we finished.

It had been a long day, so we stopped for coffee on the way back.  While ordering, Nate was complimented on how beautiful his accent was.  Silly Aussies.  The trip back was along the main highway, and Rob shared stories and answered questions to help pass the time.

Overall, the tour itself was good.  However, we were underwhelmed with the Blue Mountains.  Part of this was likely due to our misconceptions of the place and also the lack of available hiking options and facilities.  It meant more time in a van and less outside.

When we got back to Sydney we decided to walk across the Harbor Bridge to get a nice, high view of the city and the Opera House.  This wasn't the bridge climb, which we felt was too expensive and you couldn't bring your own camera.  The sun was setting and the lighting was good for photography. 

Nate even managed to find a spot for nighttime shots of the Opera House (next to a giant yacht).

We enjoyed dinner at a place called the Glenmore, which had a rooftop bar and deck with a view of the Opera House.  Surprisingly, it seemed to be mostly locals.  Tourists could be identified because they were looking to the sky and pointing at fruit bats flying over the city.

With a very long day over, we said goodbye to Sydney.  Next stop, Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road.