My brother and I visited the Blue Mountains on a day-trip from Sydney on Monday. To our relief, the skies were clear and the weather was great, except for a brief and barely bothersome early-afternoon shower. We had a
MyMulti3, which covered the train ride from Sydney to Katoomba. The train took two hours each way. We took the 7:21 a.m. departure from Central and were back by 5:30 p.m. or so.
Once we got to Katoomba, we used the hop-on, hop-off
Blue Mountains Explorer Bus service. A ticket by itself would have been $36 per person, but we opted for the "Lyrebird Pass" for $58 each, which covered not only the bus, but also included a one-way ticket on each of the Skyway, Railway, and Cableway at Scenic World.
Following the advice of the woman who sold us our ticket and our bus driver, we hopped off the bus at Scenic World (Stop 9), Honeymoon Lookout (Stop 15), and Leura Cascades (Stop 17). At Stop 9, we took the Skyway across the valley. The Skyway offers good views of the waterfall, the forest canopy, and the Three Sisters in the distance. There is a clear plexiglass floor in the middle of the car for viewing below. Upon reaching the other end -- Scenic World -- we took the Railway, with its remarkable 52 degree slope, down. We then explored the valley for a while before taking the Cableway back up. We ate sandwiches at the Cableway Cafe and then caught a bus to Stop 15, which was the recommended way to get to the Three Sisters. We took the cliffside walk from Stop 15 back to Stop 14 where we hiked over to one of the the Three Sisters before viewing them all from Echo Point. Then we hopped on the bus to Stop 17, where we explored the Leura Cascades and walked to Gordon Falls, Stop 18. Finally, we caught the bus to the Leura Railway station for the train back to Sydney. One of the two Explorer buses which makes the continuous circuit, and the one which we took, is timed to deposit customers at the Leura Railway station just in time to catch the hourly train back to Sydney.
The hiking was great and we really enjoyed the scenery. I was happy we coupled the train with the Explorer bus, rather than opting for a package tour originating and terminating in Sydney. I do think this is very much a viable day-trip from Sydney, provided that you get an early start; the 7:21 a.m. departure from Central was perfect as it got us to Katoomba in time to catch the first outgoing Explorer bus. Those using the Explorer bus ought to plan around the one-hour scheduled downtime when the drivers take their lunch break. For those who want to save a little money, there is a
Trolley service which competes with the Explorer bus. The Trolley is $20 as opposed to $36 for the Explorer, but it apparently only runs once an hour instead of every half hour and does the circuit in reverse. In all honesty, there's not much in the way of narration with the Explorer bus, but it does get your from Points A to B to C, etc., and runs according to schedule. No matter what option you choose, plan on a lot of hiking (unless you just want a glimpse of the Three Sisters from Echo Point), although most of it is not particularly challenging.