When arriving in Sydney you will realise that the most popular day trip to do is a Blue Mountains day tour.

The Blue Mountains national park is a mountainous region located near a small town called Katoomba which is just under two and a half hours drive from central Sydney. Some of the famous landmarks located in this region are the Three Sisters, a sandstone rock formation with a great back story as well as Echo Point. Your guide will show you how to yell at the top of your lungs to get an echo from different vantage points in the Blue Mountains.

The views in the Blue Mountains really are stunning and for most of the travellers on their tour it was their first introduction of how beautiful the Australian bush scenery really is.  Before arriving to Katoomba we visited the Featherdale Wildlife Park where we had the opportunity to get up close with Koalas, Kangaroos and many other native Australian wildlife species.

Feeding a baby kangaroo was my highlight of the wildlife park!

Feeding a baby Kangaroo was my highlight of the wildlife park

Rainbow in Blue Mountains
Marie manages to capture this awesome photo with a rainbow!

There is also an opportunity to get right up close and get a selfie with a Koala.  The staff are super passionate about caring for the wildlife they have in the park and can tell you all about the animals and really interesting facts about the way they would live in the wild.

After lunch we made our way from the Featherdale Wildlife Park to Katoomba which is a historic little village where our guide popped in to a local café to grab our lunch which consisted of a decent sized sandwich and an apple pie. This was very filling and gave us the energy we would need for the hikes in the Blue Mountains that afternoon.

We did this particular trip in July so it was quite chilly up in the mountains, so chilly in fact that we saw snow which was pretty cool! I’ve been told that it’s quite a rare occurrence which made us all feel special to be there in the moment.

I was told by fellow passengers on the tour that they found it really weird to see snow in Australia on gum trees so that was a bonus for them as well.

We were guided by a really funny tour guide called Ronnie who had great knowledge and stories about the Blue Mountains and surrounding areas.

 

found it really weird to see snow in Australia on gumtrees so that was a bonus for them as well

The bushwalks have a rainforest style of feel, they were amazing and the views were fantastic, we saw some waterfalls as well and even saw where some aboriginals would have stayed thousands of years ago in the mountains.

There is an optional ride(own expense) on the steepest railway in the world to get back up to the top of the mountain after your hike, but we decided we needed the exercise and chose to stick with the group and hike back up.

When we were at the waterfalls the sun shone through the spray and created an awesome rainbow which you can see Marie one of our agents enjoying below!!

All in all, the rock formations, waterfalls, aboriginal culture, Aussie wildlife, tour guide and food was fantastic and we got back to our accommodation in Sydney at a reasonable hour so this was a great day out and for some a great first experience of Australia.

Related article: Backpacker Bucket List Guide to the East Coast Of Australia

Explore the Blue Mountains Tours