This magical forest in the Blue Mountains only comes alive after dark

As a boy, I fell in love with Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, for all its beauty, grandeur and wonderment. But it was the Scenic Railway, which rocketed down the side of a cliff deep into the valley below, that always held a special place.

The railway was fast and furious fun, but I always felt the valley floor, with its forest of towering gums and remnants of old coal mine tunnels, was like a different world, far away from life on the surface.

That sense of exploring another world has been taken into a new dimension with Nocturnal, the light and sound experience that has just opened on the floor of the Jamieson Valley.

It starts at the entry to Scenic World with a light plinth offering a Welcome to Country message, including details of the stories of the night sky in the local Gundungurra culture. It also gives a hint of what's ahead down in the valley.

Once the railway races down the cliff to the bottom, the lights of Nocturnal await to lure you in, spreading out in all directions - on the cliffs, in the trees, along the track and forest floor, creating a range of visual effects that turn the area into an enchanted forest. Nocturnal is not just to be looked at but to be walked through and enveloped by as it illustrates two distinct chapters of the area.

The first chapter marks the 80th birthday of Scenic World - the family-owned tourist attraction opened in 1945 - with projected images on the cliff walls of the engineering marvels of the railway and Skyway cable car. The second chapter showcases the animals, plants and landscapes found within the UNESCO World Heritage-listed area.

Around each turn of the boardwalk path are new presentations of colours and images, painting the rainforest canopy in an otherworldly glow.

Sometimes it's shimmering lights on cliff walls, in other places giant images, such as a lyrebird soaking up the moonlight. There are moving configurations of flickering specks of light. But probably the most striking are the streams of coloured lights illuminating the forest floor, representing the growth of tree roots and networks of ground plants.

The writer was a guest of Scenic World.