Guest Author - Michelle R. Mangio
When it comes to visiting other countries and regions, we all want to play the part of a tourist but feel like a traveler. By that I mean, we want to see the sights, but we don't want to feel like we are just part of the masses pressing our noses against the glass in our buses, seeing but not really experiencing.
Enter Australian Wild Escapes, a company devoted to those experential small groups tours that get you into the heart of Australia to experience the side of it few tourists ever see, even when you are setting out to visit a well-traveled area like the Blue Mountains.
The Blue Mountains, just an hour's drive outside of Sydney, offer an idyllic escape from the city. For me, it reminds me of the White Mountains of New Hampshire - it very much had that sense of coming home - yet was different and exotic enough for me to know I was half a world away.
We wanted to really see the Blue Mountains, but only had a day to do so, and both did not want to rent a car and explore on our own, nor did not want to join the throngs of tourists crowding into the large buses to be shuffled from sight to sight. Australian Wild Escapes thus came to our rescue.
It starts the moment you are picked up from the door of your hotel in a luxury mini-van and taken up into the Blue Mountains. There were only six of us that morning, making it intimate and relaxed, and our driver told us about the areas of Sydney as we drove through and into the Blue Mountains.
Our first stop was to delve deep into the National Park, to a remote valley where we disembarked and went in search of kangaroos in the early morning light. And we found them, dozens of them, lounging around in the early morning light. It was amazing and the perfect experience - we were watching them in the wild, in their natural habitat, and not in the zoo.
Morning tea followed a short ride to a remote outlook overlooking the Jamieson Valley, Australia's own Grand Canyon. Here, our guide helps us understand this amazing valley, exploring the flora and fauna. It's not just a talk but a hands-on experience. He takes us to amazing overlooks, ancient aboriginal sites, and rock formations. We even explore a cave where an outlaw once lived.
We are then taken down to Leura and skirt Cliff Drive - where the throngs of tourists are packed - to Katoomba, where we are taken to a remote lookout to gaze out over the Three Sisters, an amazing rock formation in the middle of the Jamieson Valley, and here the legend of the Sisters is told to us.
Finally, we are taken back into the heart of the Blue Mountains and its forests, to a rustic lodge where a gourmet lunch is prepared for us, and we sit around a fire sipping wine and tea as we talk excitedly about all we have done today.
On our return to the city, we stop at the Olympic Park where Sydney hosted the Olympic Games in 2000. A brief tour, including stories of the Games, ends in a lesson on how to throw boomerangs. (Sadly, I prove to not be very good at that!) And then it is a return to the city, an explanation of the different regions and architecture of the city neighborhoods as our drive takes us back to the door of our hotel.
If you are looking for a unique way to experience the Blue Mountains of Sydney, I highly recommend Australian Wild Escapes and their small group tours. The Blue Mountains High Country Eco Tour is a relaxed and intimate way to truly experience the mountains.
