From Sydney, we took a day and toured the Blue Mountains, west of the city. Here, our guide Danae talks Eucalyptus.

This seed - not necessarily Eucaplytus - resembles a devil.

The Blue Mountains are a maze of box canyons with dead ends. It took decades for the first settlers to find a way through. They finally did so by staying out of the canyons and following the ridges.

The ridge in the distance is the route of the Great Western Highway, connecting Sydney with the interior.

We stopped at the Grand Canyon of Australia.

It's not as big as the American Grand Canyon, but it's big.

We had lunch at the Imperial Hotel in Mt. Victoria.

It had this neat bench in the front, but I couldn't get anyone to sit on it.

These three peaks are called the Three Sisters, from an aboriginal story about a shamen who turned his daughters to stone to save them from a monster - but then couldn't turn them back

I call this shot Three Sisters (and Two Guys).

We stopped at the Featherdale Wildlife Park, where Jack Connelly petted kangaroos.

Finally, we took a ferry back to Sydney, passing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

From the boat, we passed the Sydney Opera House.

We spent the next day doing the bridge climb. I took this shot afterward. Although our climb was under hazy skies, by the time we finished, unfortunately, the sky had turned rather gray.

They wouldn't let us take cameras on the climb. I took these shots of other groups from the North Pylon observation deck.

You would think it would be scary, but it isn't.

You climb up a very sturdy, secure walkway on one side, firmly attached to a guide rail by a tetherline.

Then you cross over and come down the other side.

This shot from the pylon shows Circular Quay, the settlers' original landing place and now the hub of Sydney's very busy ferry system.

The Opera House from the pylon.

Our BridgeClimb guide took this extremely goofy shot of us at the top.