Our third day we decided to get out of the city and took the train to Blue Mountains National Park, about two hours west of Sydney. We got a ticket on a bus that goes around in a big loop all day so that we could hike a little, then catch a ride to the next area.

At the first stop, we took the 52° gradient Scenic Railway to the bottom of the Jamison Valley.

In the rainforest at the bottom of the valley, we saw bright red parrots and giant tree ferns.
Katoomba Falls was just a short walk from the bottom of the Scenic Railway.
We took the cable car back to the top -- this is a view across the valley just before we reached the top.
According to Aboriginal legend, the Three Sisters formation was created when three sisters were turned into stone to protect them from a monster.
We missed the (hourly) bus by just a minute, but we saw these cool rose-breasted cockatoos on someone's lawn while walking to the next stop.
We walked along the Prince Henry Cliff walk trail. On the left is Bridal Veil falls; on the right is a view over the Jamison Valley.
Here's Kimberly on the trail. The rainforest opened up into a gum tree (eucalyptus) forest as we got closer to the cliff top.
There were more great views of the valley along the way to Leura Cascades.
Here's the map for the Explorer Bus that goes around the area every hour. Our hike along the valley rim was a little longer than we'd planned.