During your visit to Australia make sure you include a trip to the Blue Mountains with a stop off at Featherdale Wildlife Park.

We booked a day tour that included Featherdale Wildlife Park in the western suburbs of Sydney. It is a 7-acre sanctuary for animals, reptiles, and birds all contiguous to Australia. Did you know that 7 of the top 10 world's deadliest snakes are found in the land down under?

The park's main purpose is animal and environment education to students throughout Australia. They provide an open-air schoolroom, which seats 90.

With limited time our main goal was to see the Koalas. They eat a plant which are poisonous to humans, but makes then high, therefore the reason they sleep 22 hours a day. Luckily we were there when they were awake and ready to eat. You can only touch them on the spotted part of their behinds or else they will climb down the tree and run away.

Emi and Hiro enjoyed feeding the animals along the sidewalk. The park includes wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, birds, snakes, Crocs, and lizards. We could not get a picture of the Tasmanian Devils, as they stayed hidden in the brush. 

It is easy to get there by public transportation from Sydney right to the park.

Back on our tour bus for an additional 60-minute ride west, we came to the beautiful Blue Mountains. They get their name from the natural blue haze caused by the eucalypt trees. The trees secrete oil drops and when mixed with the sunlight and vapor result in a beautiful blue hue.

Scenic World is a little like the Grand Canyon with trees. To enter the park you ride the Skyway glass-floored cable car right over the canyon.

Take the 52-degree railway, the steepest in the world, down to the rain forest.You can even choose your seat position for a more memorable ride. Miwa and I chose the Cliff Hanger and that added another 20 degrees to the ride.

Down at the bottom we walked along the Scenic Walkway, a 2.4-kilometer boardwalk, longest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Echo Point provides an excellent view of The Three Sisters rock formation representing sisters Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo who according to Aboriginal legend were turned to stone. There are many versions of the legend about the three sisters from being kidnapped by the leader of an opposing tribe to the sister's father turning them into stone to keep a creature from devouring them. No matter the story the rock formation is unique and picturesque.

From the same point look down to the left and you will see Katoomba waterfalls as it descend 244 meters into the Jamison valley.

The park also includes an interesting old coal mining area many great exercise trails, and much more.