With all the time zone changes we have had, I haven't been able to keep up completely and now wake up too early. I was up around 4 a.m. and looked out the window to see the lights of Sydney right outside. I stepped out on the balcony to watch for a little while, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge came into view. It was mostly dark with only a couple of lights at the apex of the arch and a string of them shining at street level.

We planned a long shore excursion for the day and had a wonderful time. Leaving Sydney on a nearly full bus, we first drove to Blacktown to see the Featherdale Wildlife Sanctuary. Phil and I stopped going to zoos a long time ago since we have no young ones to take anymore, but we had a great time on our own. We were able to get up close to one of the koalas, and we saw a bunch more of them as well as many other animals that are native to Australia. They have a number of species of emus, wallabies, kangaroos, wallaroos, wombats, dingoes, emus, cassowaries, echidna, and a lot more. Some of the wallabies were outside the cages roaming on their own and did not seem to be disturbed by the humans near them snapping photos.

The next stop was for lunch at the Mountain Heritage Hotel and Spa near the Blue Mountains. Food and service were okay, and we had a little bit of free time to see the view of the mountains from their patio.

Seeing the Blue Mountains was the highlight of the tour. We drove to Echo Point at Katoomba to see the formation called the Three Sisters. The Aboriginal story says that they were formed by three sisters who had been forbidden to marry. The brothers who wanted to marry them decided to abduct them. To keep them safe, a witchdoctor turned them into stone expecting to reverse the spell when the danger was over. Unfortunately, he was killed before he could rescue them.

From there we drove to Scenic World and the top point of the scenic railway to ride down into the valley of the Blue Mountains. The railway is the steepest of its kind in the world with an incline of 52 degrees. It did feel like we were falling down the hillside. At the bottom we got out for a nature walk among the eucalyptus trees. After about twenty minutes walk up and down through the forest, we reached the base of the aerial cableway and took it back up to the top where the bus was parked. Both the railway and the cableway offered great views of the mountains.

After a full day, we headed back into Sydney arriving just as afternoon traffic was building. We had dinner in the Princess Grill alone. Janet and Robin went home from Wellington concerned that their granddaughter had become ill very suddenly.

We have an overnight on the Queen Mary 2 while it was docked in Sydney. Tomorrow we will disembark and move to the InterContinental Hotel.