Best of Sydney

October 30th--Our day started pretty early, but we had an exciting day planned. We scheduled ourselves on our first all day tour since we've been traveling. We have always been hesitant of long tours just because of the schedule and the children. But, this tour sounded wonderful and hit all the major sights we wanted to see around Sydney. We were picked up at 7:30 from our apartment and boarded a 20 passenger mini-van. We were the first on the van which worked out well for us because we got the front row seats. We then drove around for about 30 minutes picking up all the other passengers before heading out on our tour. Our first stop was at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Park area. We were able to get out to take some pictures of the Olympic Stadium and the cauldron (that held the flame) that was taken down from the stadium and placed on the ground. We also got to see our tour guide, Ken, demonstrate how to throw a boomerang. It is apparently very tricky so no one was able to practice, but the kids did get to hold one. From the Olympic Park, we headed to have morning tea at Featherdale Wildlife Park. Here we got up close and personal with native animals, especially koalas and kangaroos. We also got to see Wombats, Tassie Devils, Dingo's and Willabys. The Koala and Kangaroo experience was incredible as we were able to feed and pet them. Koalas sleep 19 hours a day so we were lucky to be there while a few were awake. From here, we drove about an hour into the Blue Mountain area. We drove through the cute town of Leura which is known for it's manicured gardens. We also saw the Leura Cascades. Unfortunately, Australia is in a huge drought so the waterfall was very small. From Leura, we entered into Katoomba where we stopped for lunch. Our choices for lunch was a Chinese buffet, roast with vegetables or fish & chips. Between all 4 of us, we got to sample a little bit of all the choices. After lunch, we drove to Echo Point where we saw the world famous 'Three Sisters' and a view of Australia's "Grand Canyon". This is where we saw our most magnificent views of the tour and found out why the area is called the Blue Mountain. There is a blue haze over the area that is caused from the Eucalyptus tree vapors. There are 500 kinds of Eucalyptus trees and Koalas only eat 20 of the 500. No koalas will be seen in the Blue Mountain area because the 20 Eucalyptus trees are not in the area. From Echo Point, we drove to Scenicworld to ride the Scenic Railway which is the world's steepest incline railway and we believe it too. Once we reached the bottom, we walked on the timber boardwalk which took us through the rainforest, past coal mines and allowed us to smell the Eucalyptus trees. We returned up the mountain on the Flyway cable car. Once back on the top, we drove to visit Cahill's Lookout. Here we saw the famous "Boars Head Rock" which does actually look like a Boar. We also learned about the "Mountain Devil" which changes from a red flower into the devilish thorn. We then made our way back to the pretty village of Leura for a short afternoon snack break. When we had driven through the town earlier today, I saw that they had a Christmas Cottage. When I found out that we were actually stopping for some free time, I headed straight to the store. Unfortunately, it was so small and didn't really have anything that couldn't be purchased in the States. After our break we got back on the van and headed into Sydney while being entertained with legendary Aussie Folk music. Our van dropped us off just outside of Sydney where we boarded a boat. We then cruised back to the city along the Parramatta River. The boat took us under Sydney Harbour Bridge with a water view of the Sydney Opera House and then into Sydney Harbour where our tour ended. We walked around the harbour area for some great views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge at sunset. We then caught a taxi back to the apartment to end our long, but wonderful day.