Trip to the Blue Mountains

Before the semester started and after I had finally settled housing issues and most of my uni admin stuff, my parents and I, along with Samuel and his dad, felt that it was time for an actual 'holiday'.

So we thought about it, and decided to go for a day trip to the Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves, west of Sydney. And we did so, on 18 July (The weekend before sem started).

We went by tour coach, and the drive out west took several hours, passing suburb after Sydney suburb (This is where I first realized how spread out Sydney was). Unfortunately, I didn't get photos of this part of the trip...

Our stop in the Blue Mountains was at Katoomba, the major town and tourist destination of the area. The photos in this article (above and below) are mostly taken at this stop (unless stated otherwise).

Scenic World, Katoomba. The place where we stopped for views and for toilets. We also went for two short cable car rides, a steep mine train, and a short walk through the forest.

Two of the views from the cable car that went over a deep valley:

We also saw many white Cockatoos in the area. Apparently, they were quite common in the wild.

On the way back to our coach, I saw some buds on a leafless tree - I couldn't really decide if they were going to turn into leaves or flowers...

The journey to the Jenolan Caves from Katoomba took quite some time more, as the caves were actually beyond the main range of the Blue Mountains, which meant that we actually were crossing the mountains to the inland plains.

Views along the way to the caves included giant wind turbines:

And some traffic along the long, long, roads.

We arrived at the caves in time for lunch, and while we were doing so, we saw several wild parrots of some sort, perching around. They must have been hungry too...

We had a tour of one of the cave systems there, which was not too bad. Unfortunately, caves are absolutely difficult to photograph (for me anyway) so I didn't manage to get many good shots at all.

Here's one of them:

After the tour, we returned to the coach, and went on the long drive all the way back to Sydney...