Originally we thought we would take public transportation to the Blue Mountains, about 60 miles west of Sydney. However that would have cost us about $50 per person and we would have had to figure out where exactly to stop and what to do ourselves. So we decided at the last minute to book a day tour for $90 per person instead. This tour was not as good as the Great Ocean Road and it also wasn't as pretty, but it was still worth the trip and it was easier to do with a tour than by ourselves.

We waited at our hotel to be picked up by the tour company and they were about 30 minutes late, which was a little annoying since we had gotten up so early to meet them. We still had to pick up more people before we headed out to Olympic Park, where the 2000 summer Olympics were held in Sydney. There wasn't much to see there, but they did have the torch near one of the parking lots and plaques of all the medal winners. At the entrance of ANZ Stadium, there's a ring hanging on the building that has a feather from the national bird of every country that participated in those Olympics, which I thought was really cool.

After that short stop, we continued on to a small touristy town of Leura on the edge of the Blue Mountains. There were a few cute shops there, including a place to buy candles and other decorations and a candy store with lots of candy from all over the world. We didn't spend much time here either before we went to the next stop, which was finally inside the Blue Mountains. We rode a small train called the Scenic Railway down into the mountains. It claims to be the steepest train in the world, with a downgrade of about 52 degrees. It was pretty darn steep and there wasn't much to hold us in our seats except for the rail and seat in front of us and the cage above our heads. In retrospect, it probably isn't very safe. It was kind of funny though because they played the theme song to Indiana Jones as we headed down on the train.

Once at the bottom, there was a network of boardwalks going through the rain forest and it wasn't too busy, which was surprising. After spending about 30 minutes walking around the rain forest, we took the Scenic Cableway back up to the visitor's center. We had some good views from the top.

After that we ate lunch at a cafeteria type place, which was nothing special. I had the fish and chips and Troy had roast lamb. It was interesting talking to some of the other people on the tour during lunch. One guy was from New York City and had an interesting accent and smacked his food a lot. We also talked to a woman with her husband and kids and found out they used to live in Fort Worth, specifically in Wedgwood. They now live in Canberra because the husband works for Lockheed Martin and they transferred him there. It's a small world indeed I suppose.

The most popular viewpoint in the Blue Mountains is called Echo Point, where the Three Sisters are located. The Blue Mountains are named so because of the way the light reflects off of the vapors given off by the eucalyptus trees. One thing I would have liked to see was the Jenolan Caves, but it would have taken too long to get out there.

Three Sisters at the Blue Mountains on Vimeo.

On the way back to Sydney, we both took naps and then stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park to spend about an hour interacting with koalas, wallabies, and other native Australian birds and mammals. I probably enjoyed it more than Troy. It was fun getting to pet some of the animals.

Koala eating leaves on Vimeo.

Pretty peacock on Vimeo.

Baby Koala on Vimeo.

Our tour guide was kind of weird and goofy too, so we weren't very impressed with him. We had to catch a ferry back into the city and we were running behind schedule so he drove pretty fast in order to make it to the ferry in time. In fact, he told us to run toward the pier so the ferry wouldn't leave us there. It was nice to be off the bus and to relax and have more room on the ferry. Sydney has a pretty extensive ferry network and so we stopped at like 10 piers before we finally made it back to the Circular Quay in the CBD. It was really cool riding the ferry underneath the Harbour Bridge and next to the Opera House. The only downside is it was incredibly windy, so windy it almost knocked me over. It was hard to take video in what was probably the heaviest wind I've ever experienced.

Ferry Ride into Sydney on Vimeo.

We were pretty hungry by the time we got back. I wanted to eat at Nando's one more time before we left Australia, so we went there for dinner and it was really good. There's actually a few Nando's in Vancouver, BC and one in Washington DC, but I've heard the one in DC is a lot different from the ones in Australia, so who knows if the ones in Vancouver are any good either. I guess we'll find out when we go there for the Olympics in 4 months.

We walked around the Queen Victoria Market and The National Gallery of Victoria a little more and then decided to take the train down to the harbour again to take some nice night photos of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. We walked around the Rocks briefly and then went back to the hotel to rest from the long day.