Christmas Day

Merry Merry! We headed out early this morning via coach to the Blue Mountains, an area west of Sydney. En route we stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park, a very animal-full park – wombats, crocodiles, penguins, snakes, kangaroos, domestic animals, tons of birds (among them owls, peacocks, emus, parrots), and naturally kangaroos & koalas.

We never did spot the Tasmanian devil (are they real or just part of Bugs Bunny’s imagination?). Kids had “passports” to stamp at various stations after viewing corresponding animals, which made it all the more fun for them.

They also got to feed and pet a host of kangaroos and we got to have our photos taken with some furry little koalas. Joe didn't get too close.

Most animals seemed to be their cute happy selves but we did encounter one wacked kangaroo. Or at least another tourist encountered it and Joe witnessed the moment of insanity (people overload?).

As the kids and I were checking out birds said kangaroo jumped on a woman sitting on a bench nearby. Joe had predetermined that the kangaroo was a bit off and wanted us to steer clear of it. I missed its leap at the poor unsuspecting tourist; by the time I turned around the kangaroo was removed from the situation and looking quite innocent.

We also saw two other tourists making a beeline away from what they termed “aggressive birds.” Not sure where animal control was…

The rest of the experience was tame – we were amused by a peacock on the loose. Apparently it has free reign of the place; at one point it was on the roof.

Eventually we were tracked down by the folks working the front desk; they’d been trying to get us to leave for a while as it was Christmas day and we were the last tourists in the place.

Up into the mountains we went, stopping near an old coal mining area (mining ceased in the area in the 1930’s). We took the world’s steepest train ride (a very short ride in open train cars) into the rain forest/mining area.

We then walked a boardwalk to look at caol-mining memorabilia and to learn about the work, the ponies used by the miners as well as the trees, plants and animals native to the area.

We came back up to the top via a cable car with tons of other tourists crammed in. That too was a very short ride (good thing as we were wall to wall in the cable car. Wonder how much weight it’s supposed to hold?).

The views, both below and above, were gorgeous – extremely steep canyon and cliffs with Three Sisters rock formation to our left.

After a lunch of freshly grilled sausages on the rooftop we took off again, the last stop at Echo Point to view the Three Sisters up close and have a look over the cliffs again – what a gorgeous place.

The trip home went fast as Jackie Chen helped pass the time (wonder how many movies he’s made and if any of them are good?).

After re-grouping a bit we walked forever, enjoying Sydney’s Christmas décor (and one particularly large tree in a shopping/hotel complex – you could just see the base in the entry way – had to walk way down the hall and look WAY up to see the top).

We stopped at Summit, a revolving restaurant overlooking the harbor with incredible 47th floor views. After a Christmas drink (the kids received Christmas stocking stuffers from the staff) we headed to Darling Harbor for a final Sydney dinner - -Italian and very good. (Seems like we’ve eaten a lot of Italian on this trip, hard to get tired of it, though.)