Blue Mountains Tour Bus Route ~ Travel Australia

Katoomba Leura Scenic Tours Route Stops

You can get to the scenic Blue Mountains towns of Katoomba and Leura, Australia, a few hours west of Sydney by day trip bus tour or by train then a local tour bus in Blue Mountains. If you have a car, you can drive yourself. Since I took the train and planned to stay a few days and tour the caves at Jenolan, I booked a room at Leura Gardens Resort. There are lots of tour buses to Katoomba Blue Mountains, but once you are there, there is a fairly standard circle tour route of the highlights, like Scenic World.

The Trolley Shop near Katoomba Train Station, Blue Mountains Australia

From the Katoomba train station, exit west (right) and you can see this sign for Trolley Shop tours. That's the easy way.

I left the train a station earlier, at Leura, and made by way by cab to my hotel, so I didn't get to this office until the next morning.

At my hotel, staff directed me to the tour bus that stopped every hour from roughly 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. outside the hotel gates.

Though the sign said 'Trolley', it was a large tour bus not an old fashioned trolly picked me up.

The most helpful driver said he was able sell day trip passes ($20 AUD), but since I was staying for several days, the weekly pass ($29) was the best choice for me.

Weekly passes etc. could only be bought at this office (picture) in Katoomba. But since it was late in the day and the office would be closed before we would get there, he let me ride free around the scenic route, get off for a half hour in Katoomba to buy food, then get back on again to return to my hotel.

Pretty nice treatment of a stranger in a strange land, and a good example of how nice and friendly people are in Australia.

Echo Point Katoomba Blue Mountains Trolley Stop

A large trolley tour bus picked me up at the hotel stop (Stop 7) the next morning, and I again rode the circle tour route. There are 29 stops or points of Interest along the route.

I rode first to the Trolley shop office in Katoomba (Stop 1) so I could pay for my weekly ticket.

Here's a picture of the actual old Trolley car coming into the bus stop outside Three Sisters Plaza (Stop 20) at Echo Point (Stop 18) and Three Sisters (Stop 19).

As to why a large tour bus and not a trolley picked me up for the first two days?

On this very busy summer holiday weekend, there were more people wanting to take the tour than the smaller trolley could carry.

Echo Point - Three Sisters tour bus stop Katoomba Blue Mountains

This sign is typical of those along the scenic tour route in Katooma and Leura.

Several tour companies picked up from this stop, so it shows different numbers and times:

Stop 14 is for one of the others.

The red trolley at the bottom of the sign with Stop 19 indicates this is pick up and drop off point for my tour.

There is also an express bus (route 2 at the time I was there) that goes directly back to Katoomba, if you've a train to catch.

Drivers for all companies seemed endlessly patient when directing people to the correct buses.

Bygone Beautys [sic] Treasured Tea Pot Museum Leura Blue Mountains

This is the Treasured Teapot Museum known as Bygone Beautys [sic] and Stop 5 on the Katoomba Leura scenic trolley tour.

I stopped here on my fourth day in Leura, near the end of day, as it was spitting rain.

Inside I found a lovely tea room lined with shelves of china tea pots (duh!) and hundreds of knicks and knacks as far as the eye could see.

If you're short of time on your Blue Mountain tour, you can safely give this a miss. Unless you really love teapots and chotskies, Tchotchkes, whatever.

Related pages: Blue Mountains