Day 5 in Sydney - bus trip to Blue Mountains - part 2

After visiting the Sydney Zoo, we continued westward to the Blue Mountains. Our bus driver told us that the mountains are called "blue" because of the prevalence of eucalyptus trees and the fact that they release eucalyptus oil when it is warm and sunny, making the mountains appear blue. (Of course, the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia also appear blue, and they don't have eucalyptus trees, so... I think mountains may just appear to be blue?)

Our first stop in the Blue Mountains was at Echo Point Lookout to see the Three Sisters. 

The legend of the three sisters can be found here: https://bluemountainstoursydney.com.au/blog/dream-time-story-of-the-3-sisters-in-the-blue-mountains/

A selfie with the Three Sisters

A view of the mountains around us

Stealing a kiss at the Three Sisters

After the visiting lookout point, we drove in to Leura to get lunch (on our own):

We chose to get lunch at Freudian Sip...

... inside the cafe. It was okay, but not outstanding.

Our bus driver and the bus, along with a couple of fellow travelers

We then headed to Scenic World -- when I had visited the Blue Mountains back in the early 1990s, I don't think it was quite as built-up and commercialized.

Now they have a scenic skyway...

From which we could see the Katoomba Falls...

We also had pretty magnificent views out across the valley.

On the skyway

Tops of some of the tree-like ferns

The Skyway took us the the Scenic World main building, where we proceeded to the Scenic Railway.

I only remember traveling on the railway when I visited in 1990.

The pictures that I took on the railway on this trip weren't very good...

Narrow passage

Coming out into the valley below

A view of the railway car

Looking out from where the train let us off

Walking paths in the valley

The tracks for the railway --

Information about the Scenic Railway

Another fellow traveler on one of the old-version cars for the railway

I looked back at pictures that I had scanned in from my trip to this area in 1990:

It was an open car back then (September 1990)

We decided to take the medium distance trail from the Railway to the Cableway -- to get to the forest "floor" we had to walk down a number of steps.

We didn't actually walk on the forest floor -- the walkways were really nice...

They had some things displayed in the trees (the ones in this picture were butterflies) -- the various things were there for children to hunt for...

... we enjoyed the walkways.

Looking up toward the cliff

The Cableway before us going up the hill

Looking out at the Three Sisters

Looking down toward the bottom station

An interesting sign in the restroom!

The bus trip did not take us back to Sydney but rather finished near the Sydney Olympic Park at the ferry wharf where we could use the "tap on/tap off" with our contactless credit card to take the ferry back to Circular Quay.

It was near sunset so the light on the buildings up the harbour was really pretty...

Looking back toward the sunset

Buildings downtown in Sydney with pretty colors toward the east

A bit more closeup of the buildings

We got off at the Barangaroo wharf rather than continuing to Circular Quay -- the walk would be about the same distance, but we knew of a place where we wanted to eat on the way back to the hotel. It was a rather long day, but we enjoyed all we got to see and do!