Blue Mountain

Today is the first day we would leave the hustle and bustle of the city and from the concrete jungle they call Sydney to a more relaxed and nature oriented Blue Mountain. Initially we planned to rent a car to drive to Blue Mountain and also to Hunter Valley, however the budget didn't allow for this so we decided to take a 2 hour train ride to Blue Mountain.

The train had some very innovative and interesting seats. When we first got on, all the seats were facing in the opposite direction of travel. Since it was going to be a long-ish ride we decided to find a seat which is facing the correct way. What we didnt know was.....

Yes the seats actually can be changed to face both ways. As in Amy's caption Ingenious!! When we arrived at Blue Mountain, we got ourselves a 24 hour pass for the Blue Mountain Tram service which will allow us to board the tram unlimited amount of times for 24 hours and it will bring us to all the different tourist attractions in Blue Mountain.

After checking into out lovely B&B (Lurline House, highly recommended because of the fantastic room and also the service we got was exceptionally good), we decided to first tackle Scenic World. Scenic world consist of actually 3 main attraction which is the Scenic Railway, Scenic CableWay and Scenic SkyWay. We decided to take out the Scenic Railway first.

We later found out it is not very scenic but pretty scary. The attraction to Scenic Railway is actually it is the steepest incline in the world, plunging 415m in an almost 45 degree angle towards the base of the forrest.

Once we reached the bottom of the cavern, we were treated to fantastic sights of Blue Mountain..

This part of the Blue Mountains used to be a coal mining town and we could see remenants of the coal mining activities around.

After a short 45 min walk around the area, we come to the second attraction which is the Scenic CableWay. As everyone should know, when you go down you have to come up someway. Since we came down the steepest railway, it was only natural to go up using the steepest CableWay to head up.

It was quite a sight accending the steep cliff face of the valley and this was really a Scenic way. As we accended to the top, we were treated with fantastic views of the Jamison Valley. Our next stop is the Scenic SkyWay. Initially I was thinking it would be the same as the Scenic CableWay. We all packed into the "cable car" like box and then it started moving. However I got a huge surprise when the non-see through floor turned transparent and allowed us to see the forest below. It was pretty cool.

Once we got to the other side, we decided to take a walk about 1.5km to the 3 sisters. It was quite a relaxing and COLD walk. The wind was blowing again and we were no prepared for such cool weather.

Later we walked back to town looking for lunch. We stumbled upon this small restaurant selling burgers. I think I wasn't really born a Malaysian. I love burgers like any American out there. I just can't pass up the chance to have some good home made beef burgers with bacon in them.

After lunch, since it was getting late and we were getting really tired, we went to get some dessert at the Blue Mountain Choc factory. We order 1 serve of their famous hot chocolate...

After we had our tummies filled to the brim, we decided to head back to Lurline house for some real rest and relaxation. For dinner, the winds really picked up and it was gusting at over 30km/h, so I decided I make a quick milk run to the nearest fish and chip store for some unhealthy goodness.

Stay tuned for more nature from the Blue mountain....