Blue Mountains

Admission: Unlike mountain attractions in China, there's no entrance fee here - the entire Blue Mountains area is free to access. However, Scenic World, which offers train rides and cable cars, does charge admission. It's AUD 43 per person at the gate, but I managed to get tickets for two people online for AUD 180.

Parking: Free parking is available near hiking trail entrances and at Scenic World. However, parking at certain lookout points (like Echo Point) is metered, costing around AUD 4 per hour.

Recommended duration: Full day

Main attractions:

• Three Sisters

• Echo Point

• Scenic World

• Various hiking trails

We left Sydney around 8:40 AM and arrived around 10:20 AM. We parked at the Leura Cascades car park in Leura town, which is free and has tables for picnicking.

We started with the hiking area, choosing the Cliff Top Walking Track as our trail.

It takes about 2.5 hours to get from Sydney to the Blue Mountains.

Many older Australians sell their city homes and buy houses in the Blue Mountains for retirement. The environment here is indeed very nice - peaceful and comfortable.

The scenery is beautiful, and the scenic railway is quite thrilling - definitely worth trying! If you have time, you absolutely must experience the walking trails.

After being so familiar with China's mountains and valleys, viewing these landscapes inevitably led to some aesthetic fatigue - they didn't leave much of an impression. However, the air quality is excellent, and the vegetation is well-preserved. The tickets are designed to be worn on clothing - they're eye-catching, convenient to carry, and aesthetically pleasing. The three-section cable car system is well-organized. These aspects of tourism management are worth learning from for China's tourism industry.

The views are gorgeous. The Blue Mountains truly live up to their name with their blue-violet hues. You've got waterfalls and the Three Sisters to see. But the real showstopper was the breathtaking sunset 🌄 ❤️ Visited in late April - it was slightly cool in the evening. Checked the temperature and it was perfect - just the way I like it ❤️

Just a handful of sights to see - you can cover them all in half a day if you're not rushed (excluding the Aboriginal handprint cave, that's quite a trek away).
There's a girl sitting on the cliff, deep in thought.

You take a three-stage cable car ride, with the first part at a steep 52-degree angle - it's like a mountain roller coaster! While the views aren't as spectacular as the mountain ranges in China, you do get a good look at the Three Sisters.

Blue Mountains has no entrance fee - just pre-book your cable car tickets. If you're not planning long hikes, it's quite enjoyable with kids. All three cable car rides start from Scenic World.
You can take a 30-minute walk through the rainforest area.

The cable cars were converted from old coal-mining trains, giving them a roller coaster feel. This is definitely one of Blue Mountains' highlights - our little ones rode them twice!

The way they blend art installations with nature throughout the park is quite unique.

To be honest, Blue Mountains' scenery doesn't compare to the grand mountains and rivers back in China - perhaps my expectations were too high. However, the three different types of cable cars are truly a scenic attraction in themselves.

Unless you're hiking, Blue Mountains is actually quite compact. We planned for a full day but had finished everything by 3 PM.

About 100 kilometers west of Sydney lies the Blue Mountains National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The mountains are said to get their name from the vast eucalyptus forests - the oil droplets released from eucalyptus leaves create a blue haze when light refracts through them. Whether shrouded in mist or bathed in sunlight, the mountains are always veiled in a subtle blue hue, creating a uniquely beautiful and mysterious landscape. However, on rainy, foggy days, only the "mysterious" part remains.

The Blue Mountains is highly recommended in all travel guides. It's quite far from Sydney by car. A taxi would cost around AUD 400-450, while a private car service is slightly cheaper at about AUD 300.

You can book tickets through travel websites like Mafengwo. I recommend choosing the 10-11 AM entry time. Tickets cost about AUD 30 for adults and AUD 20 for children, which includes access to the cable car, scenic skyway, and one railway ride. The total cost per person for a day trip comes to less than AUD 60 - quite a good deal!

Eucalyptus forests

Queen Elizabeth II once declared this one of the world's most beautiful places (though she missed out on China's magnificent landscapes). The region holds deep significance in Aboriginal mythology. The way sunlight filters through the valleys creates an ethereal blue gradient effect that's simply mesmerizing.

In fact, the Blue Mountains are quite similar to a combination of Zhangjiajie and Mount Emei in China. There are three strange rocks standing tall in the vast alpine valleys. For Sichuan people who are used to seeing magnificent mountains and waters, the Blue Mountains are definitely not extremely imposing. The air there is excellent. It takes about two hours by car to reach the starting point of the Blue Mountains. You can take a small train to visit various scenic spots in the Blue Mountains. In total, you need to take three kinds of transportation means while touring the Blue Mountains, including cable cars and trains.  

On this day, I booked a one-day tour of #Blue Mountains National Park# through a travel agency. The tour guide was Chinese, and the guide would add me on WeChat the day before to inform me of the meeting place. At the beginning of the itinerary, the guide took us to a zoo in the suburbs. Since we had already been to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary before, this zoo didn't seem that interesting or novel to us. Moreover, we couldn't hold the koalas here for photos. We could only stand beside them. Suddenly, I thought I was so smart for having been to Brisbane in advance, and I could even hold the koalas and take photos with them. Applause~~~ We just briefly visited the zoo and then went directly to the Blue Mountains National Park. There is mainly one scenery in the Blue Mountains National Park, which is the Three Sisters. It is said that there were two tribes in this area in the past. There were three sisters in the tribe on the mountain, and they all fell in love with three young men from the tribe at the foot of the mountain at the same time. However, although they were in love, they couldn't be together. Later, the two tribes went to war, and the wizard turned the three daughters into stones to protect them. After the war ended, the wizard told everyone that as long as they called out their names towards the three peaks, the sisters would wake up. As a result, they didn't turn back into human form. Finally, the wizard died, and no one knew how to change them back. Another thing worth playing in the Blue Mountains National Park is probably the three cable cars there, namely the yellow line, the blue line, and the red line. The red line is said to be the steepest cable car in the world. We took it from the top down, and it was indeed quite impressive. But since the speed wasn't fast, it wasn't scary either. The yellow line and the blue line are ordinary cable cars. Both the yellow line and the blue line are for you to view the Three Sisters, but they are both relatively far away.  

It's just so-so. It wasn't as amazing as I had imagined, and it's a bit less impressive compared to other famous scenic spots.

The Blue Mountains are indeed vast. For European and American tourists, they may choose to spend two days, three days or even longer hiking in the Blue Mountains. However, for most of us tourists who opt for a one-day tour, there are mainly two places to visit in the Blue Mountains. One is Scenic World, and the other is Echo Point. It's quite worry-free to travel by chartered car or self-driving. But if you choose public transportation, it will be a bit more troublesome. You need to take a train from Sydney's Central Station to Katoomba, and then transfer to the Blue Mountain Trolley Tours to take a sightseeing tour of the Blue Mountains.

At Scenic World, you mainly take three cable cars. It's advisable to buy a package ticket online in advance. When you arrive at the ticket office, the staff will give you a wristband, and then you can take the three types of cable cars unlimited times. The staff will also recommend the order in which you take the cable cars. Basically, you take the yellow Skyway back and forth, then take the red Railway down to the valley, and finally take the blue Cableway back to the ticket office. The Skyway's high-altitude cable car is said to be the world's first cable car with a glass floor, but in fact, only a section in the middle of the floor is made of glass. The carriage has two types of sides, glass and iron railings. If you want to take photos, standing on the side with the iron railings will prevent issues like glass reflection. The Skyway mainly takes you to the opposite mountain peak, where there is a hiking trail leading all the way to the most famous Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains. It seems to take one or two hours to walk to the Three Sisters. Since we didn't have enough time, we chose to turn back after reaching a viewpoint halfway. When taking the cable car, you can overlook the magnificent scenery of the Blue Mountains and see waterfalls at the same time.

Next, you take the red Railway train down to the valley of the Blue Mountains. In fact, this Railway train follows the route of the former mining carts, and the 64-degree steep slope gives it a bit of the feel of a roller coaster. After reaching the bottom of the valley, there are several hiking routes. The longer ones take a few hours, and the shorter ones take about 20 minutes. We chose the shorter route and walked to the cableway station to breathe in the fresh air of the Blue Mountains and cleanse our lungs. At this time, the weather got even better. There is a great viewpoint outside the café on the second floor of the ticket office. My friend thought the view from here was even better than that from the Skyway. Scenic World is the essence of the Blue Mountains. After visiting here, you have basically seen all the major sights of the Blue Mountains.

Echo Point is actually a square. It is the place closest to the Three Sisters and has the best viewing angle, but it is just a place for taking photos as a memento.  

After seeing the scenery of the Blue Mountains, some tourists believe that the Blue Mountains can't be compared with famous Chinese mountains such as Zhangjiajie and Huangshan at all, and they have some complaints about the Blue Mountains being listed as a World Natural and Cultural Heritage site. However, they may not have noticed that the eucalyptus oil volatilized by eucalyptus trees floats in the Blue Mountains, and the light refraction generated by it shrouds the surrounding mountains and the sky in a layer of blue. This is probably the main reason why the Blue Mountains are listed as a World Cultural Heritage site, because this peculiar phenomenon is unique in the world and can only be found in the Blue Mountains.  

It's a free viewing spot. There are two viewing areas. One is for viewing the Fairy Peak. You can't take the cable car here. Taking the cable car requires an additional payment. You need to walk for about 20 minutes to the cable car station or drive there.