The first of my two day trips was to Blue Mountain. While there are lots of tours from Sydney CBD going to Blue Mountain daily, the pickup locations weren’t convenient from where we were staying, so I decided early on that I would plan the trip myself. I checked out the train schedule in advance and pre-purchased my Lyrebird Pass, which included the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus, as well as admission to Scenic World. The trip to Katoomba would take around 2.5 hours with a changeover at Blacktown. We were up at the crack of dawn and made it to Katoomba Station around 9:30am. I exchanged our bus passes at the booking office, then walked over to join the queue for the bus. 

Our first stop that day was to Echo Point, where we were treated to breathtaking views of the Three Sisters and the escarpment of the Jamison Valley. Since the bus runs hourly, we had an hour to take photos and walk through the stone archway leading to the Honeymoon Bridge, giving us a close-up view of the Three Sisters. Once the hour was up, we got back onto the bus taking us to our next stop of the day – Scenic Skyway.

Scenic Skyway is the highest single-span cable car in the world. It took about 5 minutes to make it to the other side. Along the way we got views of the Katoomba Falls, as well as the glass floors beneath us overlooking the valley. Once we got to Scenic World, we were able to get our wristbands, which allowed us unlimited use of all the attractions. Scenic Railway was closed that day due to scheduled maintenance, so while we weren’t able to experience one of the world’s steepest funicular inclines, we were still able to travel up and down the valley using the Scenic Cableway. 

We lined up for the Cableway, which took us down to the elevated boardwalk, then spent about 45 minutes taking in the sights and views (including dinosaurs) of the temperate rainforest.

Afterwards we went back up for a late lunch and planned out which trail we wanted to hike that afternoon. I had wanted to see the Leura Cascades – a one-hour return trip, which would have made it easier to turn back if we needed to, but the bus driver informed us that the route was closed, so I had to hastily make a decision on the spot. 

We ended up getting off at Lyrebird Dell, which in hindsight wasn’t a great idea. The walk would be more intense, plus we had less than an hour to complete the one-way trail, as the bus would be picking us up two stops earlier. However, we didn’t have much of a choice as we were already off the bus by then lol. 

The trail itself wasn’t super well-marked at the start, so we were a bit skeptical if we were on the right course. We did end up passing by a handful of people along the way, so we weren’t completely out in the wilderness by ourselves. During the hike we saw a large sandstone cave and passed Gordon Creek before arriving at the Pool of Siloam. It was very tranquil and I enjoyed being [somewhat] at one with nature. But I’m not going to lie – those stairs going back up afterwards were a real killer. Somehow we both made it back up just in the nick of time to catch the bus.

I think we were both exhausted by then, so after getting off at Leura we headed right to the station to take the train back home. Dinner was a low-key affair at a Vietnamese restaurant nearby. Then we came home to pack for our trip to New Zealand the next day. This was probably the hardest day physically for us, but at least we got to see all the sights in Blue Mountain. =)