Blue Mountains hiking tours from Sydney: how much walking a day tour actually does

The Echo Point boardwalk. A few hundred metres of paved path along the cliff edge from the lookout to the Three Sisters themselves, with a footbridge onto the first Sister. Every tour here does this one, and it takes fifteen minutes.

The Scenic Walkway. The forgotten part of Scenic World: 2.4 kilometres of elevated boardwalk through temperate rainforest on the valley floor, between the bottom of the Railway and the bottom of the Cableway. Flat, shaded, and the best forty minutes of most coach days.

The Giant Stairway. Around 900 steps cut into the sandstone from Echo Point down past the Three Sisters to the valley floor. The small-group days sometimes do the top section; the whole thing, down and along to Scenic World, is about two hours.

The Prince Henry Cliff Walk. Seven kilometres along the escarpment from Katoomba to Leura, past Leura Cascades and a dozen lookouts. Tours walk a section of it, usually the part that ends at a viewpoint the coaches cannot park at.

Wentworth Falls. The 187-metre waterfall on the eastern edge of the plateau, with the National Pass carved into the cliff below it. The private day at $889 reaches it; the coach days do not have the time.

The day starts later than the coaches, around nine, and misses the wildlife park on the plains. That is deliberate: the hours go into the mountains instead. The first stop is a lookout the coaches do not use, then a rainforest track of an hour or so with a guide who names the trees and the birds.

Echo Point comes after lunch, when the morning coaches have moved on to Scenic World and the boardwalk is quieter. From there the group walks a section of the cliff track towards Leura, with the Three Sisters behind and the Jamison Valley below, and comes back to the minibus by a different lookout.

Late afternoon is the part nobody forgets: a clearing on the plateau where wild kangaroos graze at dusk, watched from a few metres away. Dinner follows in a mountain town, and the drive back reaches Sydney in the evening. It is $211 for eight hours, and it is the highest-rated listing on this site.

Book $211 if the walking is the point: tracks, a lookout circuit, wild kangaroos at dusk and dinner, in a group of twenty at most.

Book $142 if you want a track and the Scenic World rides in the same day, with a ferry home.

Book a coach day at $149 if two kilometres of boardwalk and lookouts is the right amount of walking, and the koala and the rides matter more.

The Stairway is cut into the sandstone from the end of the Echo Point boardwalk, down the cliff beside the Three Sisters to the valley floor. It is steep, it is around 900 steps with landings and handrails, and it takes forty minutes down for someone with reasonable knees and considerably longer up. Most walkers go down, follow the Federal Pass along the valley floor for an hour to Scenic World, and ride the Railway or the Cableway back to the top.

A day tour rarely has two hours to give it, which is why the coach days do not go near it and the small groups do the top flight of steps to the first landing, where the view of the Sisters is at eye level and the valley drops away below.

If the full descent is the thing you want, the private day at $889 can build the morning around it, and the walking day at $211 is the closest a group tour comes. Either way, go down it in the morning, in shoes with grip, and let the Railway do the climbing.