The Blue Mountains are about a 2 hour drive from Sydney in the district of New South Wales. Blue Mountains National Park is part of a vast Great Dividing Range! The Echo Point lookout, which is where I had taken this photograph, is in the town of Katoombs. It has beautiful panoramic views of the Three Sisters mountain (second photo) which is a sacred Aboriginal site.

The Blue Mountains get their name because of the reflection. They are clad in forests of eucalyptus trees, which in the hot sun emits a mist of eucalyptus oil which then refracts light, that then makes the mountains appear blue.

The Featherdale Wildlife Park is around an hour’s drive from Sydney in a place called Doonside. It specialises in Australian native wildlife and birds as well as reptiles and marsupials. I was secretly looking forward to holding or even stroking a koala but they didn’t encourage that. As you can see though, I did manage a typical koala photo.