[Sydney Trip] Day 2: Featherdale and Blue Mountain

Planned to have breakfast at Oporto but apparently the branch that we headed to was already closed down. So we stuffed ourselves full with some breads and pastries from the nearby Pattison's Patisserie.

And off we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park! It's about 45 mins drive from Sydney city centre and by the time we reached there the sky was cloudy. Luckily after a while it started to clear up. From the entrance the park did not look big at all, so I wasn't expecting much. After the entrance we're in the first area where some birds and wombats were kept in cages. It's an open ground in the middle where peacocks, wallabies and emus roamed freely. Then from there it started to open up to much bigger space for different animal sections. Farm animals, reptiles, little penguins and many other faunas could be found in the park. There's also a picnic ground for group gathering.

Featherdale Wildlife Park

It's cuteness to the max at the koala area. Most of the native marsupial animals just spent time sleeping or lazing around on the trees. Only a handful of them could be seen eating. One koala was put outside, ready to be pet by the visitors. The keeper even offered to take our group photos with the koala. This was really different from the practice in other zoos and parks where holding and taking photos with koalas mean extra charge.

Another interesting activity in the park is feeding of the wallabies. The food which was put inside ice cream cones could be purchased there.

Stamp stations were scattered around the park and we could collect them as keepsake by stamping our "passports" that were given at the entrance.

Featherdale Wildlife Park

From the park, we drove further to Leura, a suburb located about 100 km west of Sydney. It's a pretty little town dubbed as 'The Garden Village'. We had our lunch at Wayzgoose cafe at Leura Mall: pasta, sandwiches, pies, fries, and salad. For dessert we bought some fresh scones with cream and jam at a nearby store called The French Trader.

Garden Village of Leura

After another short drive we arrived at Blue Mountain. Spent some time there to enjoy the magnificent view and took some photos.

The Three Sisters

On our way back we stopped at Costco for some grocery shopping before we headed to An restaurant at Bankstown for its famous Vietnamese pho. The pho lived up to its name. The broth and the beef slices were awesome. Their beef balls were terrific! The pho was sold in medium and large bowls and we ordered 3 large bowls to share among 6 adults. The funny thing in here was the $3.50 charge imposed for an extra empty bowl to share the soup. So we just used the 3 small bowls in which the beef balls were served, to share the food :)

So Pho So Good

We also drove by Sydney Olympic Park, just to take a quick look. The park's huge and mostly dimly lit with very few people around.