The Blue Mountains (Australia's Grand Canyon)

Sher & Jer in the Blue Mountains (Australia's Grand Canyon)

The Greater Blue Mountains Area was inscribed on the World Heritage List at the 24th Session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Cairns from 27 November to 2 December 2000.
It is an area of breathtaking views, rugged tablelands, sheer cliffs, deep, inaccessible valleys and swamps teeming with life. The unique plants and animals that live in this outstanding natural place relate an extraordinary story of Australia's antiquity, its diversity of life and its superlative beauty. This is the story of the evolution of Australia's unique eucalypt vegetation and its associated communities, plants and animals.
The Greater Blue Mountains Area consists of 1.03 million hectares of mostly forested landscape on a sandstone plateau 60 to 180 kilometres inland from central Sydney, New South Wales. The property includes vast expanses of wilderness and is equivalent in area to almost one third of Belgium, or twice the size of Brunei.
The property, which includes eight protected areas in two blocks separated by a transportation and urban development corridor, is made up of seven outstanding national parks as well as the famous Jenolan Caves Karst Conservation Reserve. These are the Blue Mountains, Wollemi, Yengo, Nattai, Kanangra-Boyd, Gardens of Stone and Thirlmere Lakes National Parks.