Blue Mountains tour vs train from Sydney: one day, two ways to do it

The Blue Mountains line leaves Central roughly every hour and takes about two hours to Katoomba, through Penrith and up the escarpment. It is a pleasant ride with a real view from Glenbrook onwards, and on a weekend the fare is capped, which is where most of the saving lives.

At Katoomba a hop-on hop-off bus loops Echo Point, Scenic World, the Leura shops and a handful of lookouts. The local bus does the same route for less. Scenic World sells an unlimited-ride pass at the gate, and on a busy day the Railway queue is the longest part of the afternoon.

Add it up and a Blue Mountains day trip by train is about ten to twelve hours, of which four are on the train, two are waiting for buses, and the rest are the mountains. It works. It is also the reason the tour operators are busy.

A Blue Mountains tour collects you from a central Sydney hotel about seven, stops at Featherdale or Sydney Zoo on the plains for the koala and the kangaroos, and is at Echo Point by late morning. Lunch in Katoomba or Leura, the three Scenic World rides in the early afternoon with the ticket already in hand, one more lookout, and back in the city by early evening. The cheapest listing here, $142, swaps the last hour on the motorway for a ferry down the Parramatta River into Circular Quay.

The small-group days go further: a bushwalk, a lookout the buses do not serve, and on $211 wild kangaroos at dusk and dinner before the drive home.

What you give up is the freedom to linger. What you get is the third place, the transport between all of them, and a driver who knows which lookout is in cloud today.

First visit, two or three days in Sydney. Take the tour. You want all three places, you want them in one day, and you do not want to spend a day of a short trip on a bus timetable. Our top pick at $150 is the day to book.

Travelling with children. Take the tour, and take one with the koala. The rides are what children remember; the koala is what they tell people about.

A walker with a whole day. Either works. The train gives you the Giant Stairway at your own pace; $211 gives you a guide, the tracks, kangaroos at dusk and dinner. If you want to be on the ground longest, the train; if you want to be shown it, the tour.

A repeat visitor, or anyone staying overnight. Take the train. You have already seen the Three Sisters from Echo Point; what you want now is Leura in the evening and a lookout at breakfast, and no tour offers that.

The train reaches Echo Point and Scenic World for about two thirds of the price and about two hours more of the day. The koala is a different trip.

A Blue Mountains tour from $142 reaches all three places between breakfast and dinner from your hotel door, and the small-group days reach lookouts no bus serves.

First visit: the tour. Second visit, or an overnight stay: the train.

Take a couple in a hotel near Circular Quay with one free day. By train: a walk to Central, the 07:20 to Katoomba arriving about 09:30, a bus pass, Echo Point by ten, Scenic World by half past eleven with a pass bought at the gate, lunch in Katoomba, a second lookout by bus, the 16:00 train home, and the hotel a little after six. Two of the three places, and around two thirds of $142 each.

By tour: a pickup outside the hotel at seven, a koala and kangaroos at Featherdale by half past eight, Echo Point before eleven, lunch in Leura, all three rides after it with the ticket already in hand, a lookout the bus does not serve, and the ferry into Circular Quay on $142 at about six. Three of the three places, and nothing to plan.

The train day is cheaper, the tour day is fuller, and both put you back at the hotel at the same hour. Which one is worth the difference depends entirely on whether the koala and the planning are worth about a third more to you. For most first visits they are.