Day 26 Land Tour Day 2 Blue Mountains

Early tour breakfast at 6:30, meeting tour at 7:15. Bus trip to the Blue Mountains. On our way to the animal preserve, we went through a 22 km long tunnel. Amazing.


We got to see several different sizes of kangaroos. They wouldn't let us feed the reds, but we got to feed the other ones.



Echidnas (pronounced EEE-kid-Na),


Penguins,


Tasmanian devils, (well, only one Taz, but a live one!)


Koalas,

Dingos,

and lots of different kinds of birds.


Cassowary,


Kookaburra,


Owls, cockatoos, lorikeets, buzzards. Our leader kept telling us to come back to the pictures with the koalas because the line was long, and it would get shorter. However, it never did. So, by the time we got in line, we were going to be late for the bus. But Adriana showed up and said it's okay. So, we waited to get our picture with the koala.

That second picture sure has Paul with a weird position of his hand. It wasn't a comfortable position, either, so unnaturally it looks goofy. The first shot with us both looking at the koala is much better. Now we're on our way to the Blue Mountains, someplace called Scenic World. It's nice, but it is a crowded,  tourist trap, with a cable car at one end and a train on the other. (Ed Note: The "train" here is actually a funicular, a railcar pulled up/down via a haul rope and rolling on rails. For those of you old-time Colorado Springs residents, think old Manitou Incline before they ripped it out. This one claims to have the steepest incline in the world at 54 degrees. That maybe now, but I think the old Manitou Incline was steeper, but since it doesn't exist anymore, I guess I can't debate it. However, this one is pretty short at a few hundred feet, maybe 600 feet, and only took a few minutes to traverse. The old Manitou Incline was a LOT longer, at over a mile) The place was filled with Japanese, Chinese, and Indian tourist groups. A short walk in between the cable car and the train through a forest.







No animal life. Then we took a skyway car across the same canyon.




We saw one waterfall, which was actually farther than we thought.


It continues on deep into the canyon.


Did we say earlier it is really crowded? Jampacked! The bus will meet us on the other side of the canyon.

Then we had lunch and a 2-hour drive back to Sydney.
Others may have gone out for the evening, but we stayed in. We are on the 9th floor, our room faces an office building.

We fly to Cairns tomorrow morning. 
Misty is in the hospital to have Violet.

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