An early morning pickup this morning as we joined our coach tour for a trip out to the Blue Mountains. Classic Australian ditty's (think Rolf Harris with slightly less cheese) were drifting through the coach's music system as we made our way through Sydney City Centre to pick up other tourists.
Our tour guide/driver was very Australian, with a lot of banter! He talked about the city and some of the short history of 'Modern' Australia. The Harbour Bridge opened 1932 and has 8 traffic lanes and 2 train lines. When built there were only 16 cars registered in Sydney so they were building for the future! It's not been updated at all since the original build.
The Opera house opened in 1973 and was designed by a Dutch architect who won a worldwide competition to get the job. He took inspiration from the view of Sydney Harbour with all the boat spinnakers. In 1996 it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site.
As we drove through the business districts it was interesting to see people go about their daily commutes. Sydney definitely has its similarities to London but an improved climate and much less busy. There was a busyness about town today as people headed to work but London would be already heaving by 8am on a Monday morning.
First stop on the tour was at Fetherdale wildlife centre. In NSW you're not allowed to pickup a Koala without being an official handler but we got to have our pictures taken with them. I wasn't overly fussed about koalas but loved them as soon as I'd seen them up close, they're very small cuddly bears!
We then continued throughout the centre, wandering around with kangaroos and wallabies and looking at the emus, dingos and hundreds of species of birds. There was a huge parrot and some even larger eagles, all of the animals we saw can be found wild in this incredible country.
A female wallaby is pregnant throughout her entire life. Once the Joey has left her pouch she will become pregnant again within 24hours and give birth 6-9 months later. Due to this they are over populated throughout the country and need culling every few years. Therefore it is legal to eat the meat and use the hides which are exported around the world.
We arrived for our first view point in the small town of Leura. The town is known for its beautiful sping colours and we had our first view of the beautiful spring cherry blossoms. The weather's lovely and crisp in this part of the mountains, perfect wandering temperature! The Blue Mountains are so named because from a distance there appears to be a blue haze coming from them. This is really light being refracted through eucalyptus oil which evaporated off the trees covering the mountains. 
We'd pre-ordered lunch and both enjoyed a huge hunk if lasagne followed by chocolate brownie! Much needed after skipping breakfast this morning. The town feels very American with the houses and small shops. There appear to be very few chains and a number of small boutique family run stores.
After lunch we headed to our main viewing area with a view of the Three Sisters rock formations. The aboriginal story goes that the three sisters were turned to stone by a witch doctor to protect them during war because they had been having relations with men from the opposition. I'm not convinced by the story but there were stunning views over the valley and across to other mountain ranges.
After a short wander we headed over to Scenic World via the Scenic Skyway. We then went down to the rainforest via the Scenic Railway, the steepest railway in the world. This was formerly used by the miners who worked in the Jamison Valley and has now been updated as a tourist attraction.
We had a lovely wander through the trees on the wooden walkways taking in the rain forest with glimpsed views of the distant mountains. It was nice to go on a slightly lon
ger route and get away from the majority of tourists. We headed back up via the Scenic Cableway and back on the bus towards Sydney.
ger route and get away from the majority of tourists. We headed back up via the Scenic Cableway and back on the bus towards Sydney.
On the way to our ferry back to the city we drove through the Olympic Village. They're still using the stadium for sport events and the athletes village has been turned into expensive riverside apartments. Interestingly they had to move the original site of the stadium as they found two green and blue bullfrogs which were considered extinct when digging the foundations. They're now left with an $85 million hole!
The bus dropped us off at the wharf by the Olympic village and the ferry back into the city was a really lovely journey through the west side of the city under the harbour bridge and through into circular quay. We passed a number of islands, one where the early prisoners from England were infamously held captive and set to work quarrying stone to build the city. There were no walls needed on the island as the criminals had ball and chains and were all terrified of the shark infested waters!
We also had a Monday night trivia evening (a quiz night!) which was very well run and very entertaining. The best round was when each team had to send a member of their team up for silent karaoke. This was basically each player listening to their chosen song on their phones with headphones in and then sing (without music) to the whole pub. The winning act put in a stunning performance of 'A whole new world'.
A very fun and tiring day so looking forward to no alarm tomorrow and heading down to Bondi Beach mid morning for a wander along the coast.
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