The Blue Mountains, NSW: Scenic World has something for art lovers, wildlife tragics and thrillseekers

Imagine walking past the lush ferns, giant eucalypts and clinging vines in the rainforest eeriness of the Blue Mountains, only to see a figure in a red cloak appear. As you approach you can't trust your eyes – is that human? Did her head move? Is it supposed to be Red Riding Hood, or someone more sinister? Just who is watching who?

These are the delicious questions visitors to the Sculpture at Scenic World exhibition were confronted with this year as the ancient rainforest morphed into a contemporary art gallery along a 2.4 kilometre boardwalk in the Jamison Valley.

The exhibition, showcasing national and international artists lured by a prize pool of $30,000, is themed around environment and sustainability and has been running for eight years.

Maybe it's the mountain air, or the historical derring-do that saw the construction of the still scary vertical Scenic Railway – first built in the 1920s – and the Skyway and Cableway with views of the Three Sisters, waterfalls and jagged sandstone cliffs, but Scenic World in Katoomba is expert at coming up with creative ways for visitors to experience, celebrate and help protect the stunning natural beauty of the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains National Park, west of Sydney.

And art works are not the only attractions causing visitors to rub their eyes. Round a bend in this Jurassic landscape late next year and you may think you've slipped through a chink in time as more than 20 roving animatronic dinosaurs stage their own extinction rebellion by going about their business as part of the Dinosaur Valley experience.

Sending children into raptures with raptors is all in a day's work for the park guides. Their thorough knowledge of this landscape and its flora and fauna combined with friendly good humour makes them as much a part of the Native Animal Experience – another popular attraction – as the stars of the show: a sugar glider, a sooty owl and a two-metre diamond python.

The day we arrive the python and his handler are in fine form helping a woman come to terms with the fact that she is close to a large snake. She stands immobile as the python drapes itself over others' willing shoulders, eliciting coos and pats as it seems to revel in its slithery suppleness. And then it zeros in on her, the one person who looks less than impressed to be here."Don't even think about it," she whispers. But this reptile is not one to be ignored. He flicks his tongue and appears to will his besotted handler to make introductions to the sceptic among us.The woman freezes as the python slides across her back with a friendly agility that causes her to admit that while she was "just here for the sugar glider", this snake does feel "surprisingly beautiful".