Mom and Dad's trip - Part 2

On Sunday, we woke up bright and early to go on a tour of the Blue Mountains. We had a really great time overall and the tour company packed a ton into the day, but I was a little disappointed at the beginning because the tour was not quite as it had been advertised. It was advertised as a small van with no more than 20 people and they specifically mentioned being able to do things that the bigger tour buses couldn't do. Well, a small van picked us up and then took us into the city where we got onto a big tour bus...what?? Once on the tour bus and heading out of the city, they also told us about our first stop of the day at a place called Scenic World. We would be there for about an hour and a half and in order to see most of the sights there, we had to pay another $20 something dollars for the 'rides'. I was pretty annoyed at that and wished they would have just included that in the price up front. Anyway, we paid it and it was worth it in the end.

The Three Sisters is one of the famous rock formations at the Blue Mountains and that was up first at Scenic World.

We took a cable car (one of the 'rides' that we paid extra for) down into a valley where we got to walk through a temperate rainforest and learn all about the vegetation there, as well as some history of the Blue Mountains. Here we are on the cable car...

There were all of these really cool ferns growing out of the tops of different trees down in the valley. Mom loved them, so we got a picture of her with the ferns, Mom and Dad along the walk through the rainforest and then one of the Three Sisters in the distance framed by ferns...

Here is Mom and Dad by a little water trickling down the mountains and then me by another little water spot...

We then headed back up the mountain in our other 'ride' and I swear, I felt like I was on a ride at Disney World! It was a little train thing that pretty much went straigh up the mountain. When you got in, you almost felt like you were laying down and as it started going up, you sat more upright and kind of had to hold onto this cage thing in front of you to keep from feeling like you were falling out! It went pretty fast and went in between rock formations...it was really cool! Sorry that I didn't get a picture of that part...

The tour bus then headed into a little town called Leura for a lunch stop. We were a little bit rushed, there were lots of lunch options, but not a lot with many seating areas. We ended up in a little cafe and had shared some laughs over our random lunch there. Later in the trip, we voted it probably the worst meal of the trip, ha!

After lunch, we headed to the next viewing place. However, in order to view this sight, we had to walk down 238 stairs...and then back up after, of course. It was also a really really hot day, so Mom and Dad opted out of doing all the stairs. I hiked down with most of the rest of the group to see Wentworth Falls. It was gorgeous for sure. It kept going down and down and there were cool freshwater pools at the bottom. I was so hot after all the stairs that I wished I was in the pools!

Next, we headed to a spot called Flat Rock where we got to walk all over this huge flat rock and see all of the mountains and valleys down below. It was beautiful! By this time, the weather had totally changed, gotten much colder and it rained on us. Was a nice change from the heat, but we were starting to feel pretty yucky after having been sweaty and then soaked from the rain. Here are some pics from the Flat Rock...

We started heading down the mountain and stopped at a spot to see an aboriginal rock engraving. It was still raining and the engraving was not very exciting...we could have down without that stop, ha!

Still not quite sure why this part was on the Blue Mountains tour, but once we got back into the outskirts of Sydney, we stopped for 45 minutes to tour around Olympic Park, home of the 2000 Olympics. It was actually really cool to see everything there and we had a good time exploring. Here is a pic of me and Dad in front of the Olympic Cauldron, which they later made into a tribute to all of the medal winners...you can see the gold, silver and bronze strips down below that had all of the winners names...

After Olympic Park, we took a (long and pretty slow) ferry ride down the Parramatta River and back into the Sydney Harbour...again, part of the tour. We had made friends with some really nice girls from North Carolina and Maryland throughout the day and shared quite a few laughs with them, especially on that long ferry ride home. After a full 12 hours of the tour, we had had a great time, but were ready to be done. Mom, Dad and I just headed back to my apartment to have leftovers from our NYE party and change into comfy clothers...we were exhausted!

Sorry for the long post, but there was a lot packed into this one day...more adventures to come tomorrow!