The Blue Mountains, Australia 3-25-09

Cable cars and run away rail cars. Do the mountains really look blue? "The Three Sisters", do you recognize them? The cable cars have glass bottoms, so you can see the big ravine you will go crashing into if the cables decide to fail!!!
What causes the Blue Mountains to be blue? Eucalyptus. Thousands and thousands of these trees surround these mountains and give off a "dust" that makes the mountains look blue. Unfortunately for some, it makes you feel a little "stuffy" and some loose their voices! Crazy but we did not. We saw the famous "Three Sisters" rock formations while we were on the cable car ride. What a ride it was. When they said that the floor was "glass bottom" who would really believe that? It was. Also, after we did the crazy coal mine car ride that plunged straight down it seemed (700 feet to be exact and is the world's steepest perpendicular railway), the kids wanted to do it all over again. We did.
We were joined on this fun tour by a family from Oklahoma that joined our cruise in Chile. They are a really sweet family and we have enjoyed being with them.
The tree studded valleys and scenic waterfalls make this a very special place.
This canyon has nothing on The Grand Canyon except it has trees and "bush". Yes, we saw a real Australian bush fire! We saw helicopters that Australia leases from the USA come put buckets of water on these wild fires. Problem was they don't require handrails in this county I guess as you could walk right out to the end of the sheer rock face, sit down and dangle your feet over the canyon! We didn't.