After a breakfast in Katoomba and a quick bit of shopping we decided to head to 'Scenic World'. The one ticket gave access to three cableways (1) over the valley in a glass-bottomed cable-car (2) down into the valley using the steepest railway in the world (3) back up the valley in a scenic cableway.
The cable-car over the valley gave us some great views of the National Park and we got our first view of the iconic Three Sisters rock formations. The glass-bottomed floor started frosted and then after a 'tinkling' sound the frosting disappeared to reveal the canopy below.
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| Glass bottomed cable-car |
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| The rock on the right is the same size as Ayres Rock |
The steepest railway had been built in the mining days to transport the miners down into the valley. For sure it was steep but it was more appreciated by people sat on the open left-hand side as the right-hand side was fully enclosed and up against the rock surface giving very little for people to look at.
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| Wild Cockatoo |
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| Steepest Railway |
Along the valley floor there was a boardwalk which took us on a 40 minute circuit through the forest. There were a number of signs telling you about machinery left on the valley floor by the miners. There was also a miner's cottage however we heard a tour guide telling people that the miners would never have slept in the valley floor and had built the steep railway for the very purpose that it enabled them to go in and out of the valley everyday. This made us wonder how accurate the information was we were being given was but hey it gave us a walk. We then caught the Scenic cable-way back up the valley.
After Scenic World we drove round to do the 5 minute walk to the Katoomba Falls. We were busy taking photos and didn't see our black friend until someone pointed it out to us. This is one of Australia's 25 venomous snakes. It had positioned itself on the cliff top on the other side of the barrier so we'd never been at risk of treading on it but it just went to show that you need to keep your eyes peeled when walking in the bush in Oz.
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| Katoomba Falls - can you spot the snake? |
Our next stop was Wentworth Falls, a couple of towns on from Katoomba. We saw some brilliant red parrots at the falls and some great views of the park, and a large lizard but fortunately no more snakes.
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| Wentworth Falls |
On the way back to Katoomba we took the scenic route via Leura township to the Three Sisters Viewing point. We'd passed by here earlier in the day but parking had been busy and expensive. It was free after 5pm so we'd decided to come back later on in the day and this time had no trouble parking. The view was great and we were able to take a 10 minute walk from the viewing platform to the Three Sisters themselves.
Back at the YHA we did our washing in preparation for Vietnam and decided on Dominos Pizza for dinner. They managed to get our order wrong and we got 2x thick crust and 2x puff pastry. The latter is not to be recommended – pizza and pastry are a most definite no no. The Three Sisters are lit up till 10pm at night so we took a quick drive down there for 9.30pm – took some rather dark pictures and then headed back to the YHA for our final night's sleep in Oz.
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