Sydney 5

It was an early departure for the Blue Mountains in a 4x4 bus with a few others, after a couple of dawn photos from the room. First stop was a wildlife park where, once again, you can get up close and personal with the kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras, wombats, emus etc, but not the crocodile! I'm sure the koalas are being turned into daytime insomniacs by the Japanese hoards wanting to pet them and the keepers here seem to encourage it by tempting them, the koalas that is, with eucalyptus branches, unlike the one near Perth.

That done, we then drove down into the smaller of the two canyons of the Blue Mountains, Grose Canyon, on a rough road that needed the 4x4. Our driver said that the canyons are smaller, but older by the long way, than the Grand Canyon, and much more green, The view across each canyon clearly showed the blue hue caused by the blue eucalyptus oil refracting in the sunlight. At the next canyon, Jamison Valley, we took a converted funicular system that holds the Guinness World Record for steepest angle (52deg), dropping us speedily down over 200 metres into rain forest terrain at the site of an abandonned coal mine that it served. Slight problem at the bottom because the cars were on the horizontal, and we were nearly on our backs trying to get out - just as well there was mesh above to help! After a wander through the forest among trees featuring the burns of bush fires and very old tree ferns (ferns on top of a tree trunk), we then ascended to the lip again via a cable car for the return to Sydney.

We took the option to be dropped off at the Olympic Park at Parramatta and take a river taxi some 15km back into Sydney harbour and Circular Quay. Weather a bit cool today and it was marginal in a short sleeved shirt up high on the Blue Mountains, but worth it. Lovely sun on the Sydney Bridge, however, when we came through it at the end.