After visiting furry, creepy, and leaping critters at Featherdale Wildlife Park, it’s time to move on to the day’s main event: the Blue Mountains.

This scenic area is located about 30 miles west of Sydney.

The look-out point:

Those peaks on the left below are called The Three Sisters.

I spy a rainbow…

We take a cable car across a gorge to see more of the area.

The fun continues at Scenic World, which has several rides that allow visitors to see even more Blue Mountains scenery (including the cable car we just rode). These are covered in my ticket with Great Sights — or you can get a cheaper ticket excluding the rides.

This ride is nuts! The vertical drop is significant (details below). You can adjust your seat to either lean back so it’s not as scary, or lean forward so it’s extra scary.

Details on this ride:

• Length = 415 meters
• Vertical Drop = 206 meters
• Steepest Inline = 52 degrees
• Length of Natural Tunnel = 80 meters

Here’s a shot of the cable car we rode earlier:

We are now on the floor of the valley below the Blue Mountains. It’s got a rainforest / jungle vibe and it feels so peaceful to walk under the tree canopy.

After about an hour of exploring, we head back to the bus. On our way back to Sydney we stop at a charming mountain village called Leura. We have 45 minutes to wander down main street, grab a coffee, and stroll through the shops.

Our bus driver mentions this candy store so of course I stop in.

I don’t buy this, but I’m SO tempted — Reece’s Peanut Butter Rocky Road. Are you kidding me?!

There’s one more sight to see before our ferry ride back to Sydney — our driver swings by the Olympic Stadium from the 2000 Summer Olympics. We don’t have time to get out and walk around, but I appreciate the drive-by because this area is quite a distance from the CBD and I don’t have another chance to come back on my own. Our driver points out where the Olympic Village was and several other buildings from the games (many of which are still in use today, like the swimming complex). The stadium below is now used as a major sports arena.

We are dropped off for a Parramatta River Cruise ride back to Sydney Harbor. It’s now twilight and the ride back is quite pretty.

The lights of Sydney glow in the distance.

Fish-eye lens photos… I like the one on the right out of focus.

I’m amazed at how much of the night sky is visible despite the light pollution. Can you see the Southern Cross constellation?

Getting closer to Sydney…

And there ends a long and fulfilling day!

If you want to go to the Blue Mountains & Scenic World on your own, it is possible to get there via train (just buy the more expensive week-long pass to access trains, ferries, buses, metro, etc. — it’s around $65 instead of $44 for seven days). But if you want to see all the side attractions in one day — Featherdale Wildlife Park, mountain town Leura, Olympic Stadium, and River Cruise — then sign up for a tour. They run about $100 – $135 and depart daily. I went with Great Sights and had a fine experience. It’s a big coach bus and fairly impersonal tour, but our guide provided commentary the entire time: lots of background on the city, the country, and every single attraction we visited. I really appreciate all that info as it made the tour a richer experience.

Many thanks to Great Sights for sponsoring my day trip to the Blue Mountains. Opinions are my own.