Saturday 9 August 2014

Australia: the Blue Mountains, a scenic world

One more day left and we decided to spend it in the country, rather than the city.  We drove up to the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, for a scenic day.  This is definitely an area that we could spend more time, and in a different situation some proper walks down in the forest and through the mountains would be great.  Tied down by a need for child friendliness however, we got our fix through the Scenic World (cracking name).  This consists of a couple of cable cars from the mountain tops to the valley floor, and a few km of boardwalk down in the forest.

We travelled down on the railway - an old miners track and very very steep.  We weren't quite expecting to go through a tunnel just after we set off at this steep angle which was, frankly, terrifying, but it was a fun and quick way down to the valley.




Here's the view back up the tracks.  Steep...


Naturally we took the longest loop we could to enjoy the forest.  This worked pretty well although Marisca did need a bit of cattle prodding.  Once we got Tom down he was considerably easier to keep moving in the right direction.



The rainforest here does have a different feel to the tropical stuff up in Cairns.  Different species, I suspect, and a much cooler feel.  They still have big old trees though like this one.



Back up the top (on the Biggest Cable Car in Australia!) we had a rather tedious lunch and then a trip across to the opposite ridge, with a walk back for a mile or two.



Here's the cable car across with the three sisters rock formation on the left - pretty cool.


It's hard to tell from these photographs the sheer scale of the landscape.  These cliffs are big, and the opposite side very far away.  A big and beautiful spot, and we were glad we forsook the city for a day out here.


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