Jalan-Jalan Sydney (Part II)

For the next couple of days, we decided to get out of the Sydney city centre. Way, way, out... First up was the world-famous Blue Mountains.

Having not made any prior arrangements, I weighed the different options, including taking a train from the central station or hiring a car for a day for a self-drive trip. But while shopping (again) at Darling Harbour, we stumbled upon a travel office that offered various Sydney packages. I sat down with the agent and told her what we wanted to experience and eventually paid for a package that came to around AUD$125 per person. It was definitely convenient, although not entirely cheap :)

The trip started with a hotel pick-up, then we were whisked to the dedicated bus terminal. The bus was nice and spiffy and the driver who was also doing the commentary was funny and friendly. And unlike the day before when rain washed out our Bondi trip, we had the best weather ever, complete with postcard-like blue skies, and spectacular sceneries.

Our first stop was to see the legendary Three Sisters. But before that, we were treated to a show and tell by a group of Aborigines performers. Pretty eye-opening, really.

Then, it was time to marvel at the sight of the Three Sisters and what they call the Grand Canyon with trees : )

We were then taken to the Scenic World attraction across the mountains. The fees for the rides were already included in the tour and we took our time to enjoy what was on offer, including the cable car, and the train, featuring the steepest incline railroad in the whole wide world.

It must be noted that the temperature was just perfect at that time and the walk around this area was nice and breezy.

Then we started our journey back down after a stop for makan at a small town.

Next up was some animal-petting action at the Featherdale Wildlife Park.

And finally, we were taken to a jetty where we took a nice boat ride back to the city. By this time, it was getting really freezing for us, but what welcomed us in Sydney really took our breath away.

As part of the annual Vivid Sydney, all iconic buildings and monuments were lit up, and we were just mesmerised by the beauty of the city at night.

But were not done with the riding of boats. Hehe. The next day, I met up with my old school friend Ikhwan, along with his fam and we went out to the sea for a spot of whale watching!

The sea was pretty choppy that day and all of us took some anti-mabuk laut pills and prepared ourselves for the unexpected, as none of us were exactly orang laut.

You must be wondering, what guarantee was there that we would bump into some of these animals? Well, there was none. But this was the season that whales would migrate and since they've been doing this for ages, we were nothing less than optimistic.

Still, it took a while before we actually spotted some. And by that time, some of the other passengers were already puking into dustbins and looking pretty sick. Our own party had some casualties, but no, I'm not naming names! (but definitely not me)

When we finally got close to two good-looking whales, they made it a trip to remember for us by doing all sorts of tricks. It was nothing less than awesome.

We did a bit of shopping after that and spent a bit more time at Darling Harbour before calling it a day. Then it was time to go home. But I can safely say, Sydney... we'll be back!