Blue Mountains

This range plays tricks with the light that most mountains can't manage, eucalyptus oil scattering blue haze across a vast sweep of World Heritage canyon country. Stand at Echo Point as the Three Sisters catch the morning sun, ride the world's steepest railway into the Jamison Valley, and follow clifftop tracks past waterfalls dropping clean off the escarpment. Cool-climate gardens, galleries and artisan studios fill a string of mountain villages further along, each with its own character. An hour and a bit from Sydney, and somehow a world away.