Day Trip to the Blue Mountains

June 23, 2005

Going to the Blue Mountains on our way to Melbourne was not in our original plan in 2005. However, when we bought the Backtracker travel pass, which gave us two-weeks train pass from Brisbane to Melbourne, it came with a free return ticket to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Since its free, we included it as a day trip.

Fortunately, a high school classmate of mine offered their home for us to stay during our 2 night stopover in Sydney. So, when our train from Brisbane arrived in Hornsby, my classmate picked us up at the station and brought us to their place. We had breakfast with his family and right after got a lift from his wife who was on her way to work and uses the train going to the Sydney CBD.

We took a train going to the Sydney Central Station where we were to catch another train going to Katoomba. We heard earlier that it snowed their the night before, so were so excited to go there. This would be our first time to see real snow.

 Upon arrival in Katoomba, we bought our tickets to a hop on - hop off bus where it passes through places of interest both in the towns of Katoomba and Leura. It's a double-decker bus where the bus driver also acts as a tour guide as he keeps the passengers informed of what we are seeing at any given moment via his public address system.