Day 60: A blue day...

A Blue Mountain day to be exact. What an absolutely amazing place!

It was just over a two hour drive to Echo Point and Scenic World in the Blue Mountains. The scenery is truly spectacular and awe inspiring. Our first walk took in the Three Sisters and the Giant Steps walk: 800+ steps (steel and uneven stone) down the cliff face to the valley floor. It is incredible how strenuous going down steps can be, and we all ended up with jelly legs by the time we got to the bottom. It was quite a funny feeling.

The Three Sisters are on the left - the three bumps. Giant steps go straight down from the first one!

From here we did a 2.5km walk to the railway: the most vertical railway in the world at an angle of 52 degrees. It is a bit alarming when the seats lie back, there is a metal plate for you to put your feet on - at knee height - and the whole thing has a metal mesh over the top of it. Anyway, we didn't give that much thought at the time and decided to come back to it after having a little explore of the old mining area just further along. This brought us to the cable car option for going up, which seemed quite tame next to the railway, so we headed back there for some thrills.

We weren't disappointed. I am just grateful that it didn't zoom up the hill. There is an 80 metre natural tunnel that it passes through at a very upright angle. One has to not think about the very inadequate provision for stopping the thing at the bottom should the brakes (or something else important) fail. In fact, the 'bottom' is a platform suspended high above the forest - a big 'gulp' factor in itself. I certainly developed an avid interest in the rock faces on the way up. Andrew of course, wanted to go down and up a few more times. Mad!

At the top we had a well earned cool drink, then headed for the 'Skyway', a cable car that travels across the valley at a dizzying height. It has a glass floor in the centre, which you can stand on and look through if you feel so inclined. Duncan and Andrew did, Callum and I didn't...though we did peer over at times. At the highest point from the forest below, you can apparently fit the Sydney Harbour Bridge in with room to spare. Charming. It was quite a gentle ride though, with stunning views.

A glass bottomed floor and forest waaaaaaaay below

A short walk (only 1km this time) back to Echo Point and that was it for us. I don't think I want to see ANY stairs in a LONG time.

The drive back was uneventful (I even managed to have a little snooze), though the traffic did build up a bit. We thankfully missed the commuter traffic and are very happy with the great day that was our day in the Blue Mountains.

Here are some more pics from our day: