Saturday 27th March

We have had another full day today. We set off early before 8am on a bus trip to the Blue Mountains, which are to the west of Sydney and part of the Great Dividing Range. The first stop was at the top of the mountains at a place called Katoomba, where there was a panoramic view of the rocks called the Three Sisters and the rest of the mountain range. We then went on to Scenic world, where there is the steepest cable railway in the world down to the valley floor. Having descended on the train (front seats) we walked along a boardwalk track on the valley floor through the rainforest before riding back to the top in a cable car. We followed this with a brief stop to see some bronze statues commemorating a chain gang building the road system west from Sydney – these would have been unfortunates deported from Britain!
We then drove on to the Jenolan Caves, which is the largest cave system open to the public in the world, with huge caverns full of stalactites and stalagmites as well as other limestone features. Our previous caving visits had been to the Blue John Caves in Derbyshire, which pale into insignificance when compared with these. The lighting had also been done very effectively to show the cave features at their best. We were in the cave system for 2 hours and even Ben’s knees stood up to the 910 steps we climbed/descended during the tour.
As we were late back in Sydney we again visited China Town to eat because it is close to our hotel. Ben commented on the number of ‘stick insects’ in their very brief attire that were wandering about – we also saw a ‘party bus’ which was jammed packed with young things pouring alcohol down their throats to very loud music – we are obviously staying in the ‘in’ area of Sydney!