The phrase “Scenic World” summons up images of a theme park, which (as a tourist) doesn’t hold a lot of attraction for me. There are certainly elements of a “theme park” (the tourist shop, the cable cars), but Scenic World (in The Blue Mountains) offers a hell of a lot more.

“We’ve been closed for three months”, our guide told us, adding that it was great to re-open. He told us they’ve been doing a lot of work with medical experts to ensure the attraction is now “Covid-Safe”. He went on to remind us of “social distancing” and to explain how often everything was cleaned.

Normally the cable-cars and the “steepest train ride in the world” can hold significantly more, he told us. For me, that there wasn’t so many people was an added attraction. The crowd on our trip (maybe forty people, I didn’t count) consisted mostly of family groups with lots of under 10s. There were a few adults on romantic weekends too.

As I was all by myself, I let the family groups go in first. I couldn’t help but notice the number of times parents said, “sorry” for the behaviour of their children. “No worries”, I replied, adding “…we were all probably much worse”.

The kids loved the cable car and train rides (and so did I). I also loved the board walk in the rainforest. There were lots of terrific opportunities to stop, enjoy the silence, and take photographs. In some ways, with so few people allowed to visit, it was a much more enjoyable experience than I’d expected.

The experience cost me $49.95 as a one-off, though for not much more I could have bought a 12-month pass with unlimited rides. Once was enough for me.

After yesterday’s joyous weather, rain set in. Though I had vague plans to get up and enjoy the dawn, the grey sky outside offered little enticement. I stayed in bed, and after eating the hotel breakfast, headed back to Echo Point.

The sky was grey, with visibility down to 30-50 metres. So in short – there was nothing to see of the landscape. However, close up, it was terrific to walk through the forest, and enjoy the rain falling on the plantlife.