Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains were another stop on my Aussie adventure. They are part of the Great Dividing Range and begin about 65km west of Sydney. Eucalyptus trees (often called gum trees here) excrete small droplets of eucalyptus oil into the air, lending a haze to the air that makes the mountains appear blue. The tour operator said the blue tinge is most apparent on really hot days. It wasn't hot when I went (well, at least by their standards in the west!), so the mountains weren't at their bluest, but were still quite beautiful. (Side note - the tour operator was the most hyper 60 year old man I've ever met, he sputtered off random facts about the Blue Mountains/Sydney/Australia in general for the duration of the 10 hour day, and also taught me how to throw a boomerang. He asked why I was here and then insisted on calling me "doc" for the remainder of the trip. Ah, how I will miss these crazy Aussies!)
Before we arrived at the Blue Mountains, we made a stop at this lovely little zoo called Featherdale Wildlife Park, where I had one of my best Aussie experiences to date - I got to "cuddle a koala" and hand-feed wallabys and kangaroos!
It's illegal for anyone other than the zookeepers to actually hold a koala in New South Wales. A few years ago they realized it was way too stressful for them to be held by people all day long (duh?!), so now you can only touch their backs and put an arm around them for a photo op. Suffice to say this is the happiest I have ever been at 8AM on a Saturday:
Could this little guy be any cuter?!
What, no more treats?
I could go on all day with photos of this adorableness accompanied by my cheesy commentary, but I'll move on to the Blue Mountains now. From a lookout point in Katoomba:
We took the world's steepest cable car down into the valley to an area of temperate rainforest. There's a boardwalk with guided and marked tracks, plus many more options for bushwalking. I would have loved to spend a few days exploring, but I don't have the time, plus it's definitely not safe to do alone. A lot of people go bushwalking and get lost, or get caught in bushfires. The valley is filled with gum trees, which burn extremely fast.
We spent a little time walking around on the tracks and then took the scenic railway back up the mountain. The railway was built in 1880 to haul coal out of the mines that were located in the valley. It is the world's steepest incline railway, and goes 415m up and through a cliffside tunnel...very cool! Here's the Three Sisters through the rainforest:
The Three Sisters is the most well known part of the Blue Mountains. Again, a little further up the mountain this time: