Blue Mountains – Part 2
Trails in the Blue Mountains can be rugged. On top of roots and rocks crisscrossing the track, most paths are rough, slippery, and often really steep. In our four days in the mountains we averaged 82 metres up and 82 metres down each day. That’s 270 feet each way or the equivalent of going up and down the stairs in an 27-story building. Most days we hiked a distance of around five miles, which doesn’t sound like a lot but combined with the elevation change, believe me, it was.
Mermaid Cave stairs – one of the many stone staircases we traversed
Tracks hug the edge of deep canyons, dip under stone outcrops, or plunge down rocky abutments and ridges.
That slanted thing on the left is actually the fenced stairs leading down
to Pulpit Rock, a narrow outcrop that sits way, way above the valley floor
(it's easier to see it if you click on the photo to enlarge it)
There is a very steep drop-off just to the right of the fence
There has been quite a bit of rain recently in the mountains and we saw many waterfalls, big and small.
Wentworth Falls – if you look closely you can see a rainbow near the bottom of the falls
Queens Cascade
Govetts Leap (leap means waterfall in old Scottish dialect)
Bridal Veil Falls
While the valleys and canyons of the Blue Mountains are often damp or even wet and rain-forested, the tops of the ridges and the tablelands are often very dry and desert-like.
Dave at the edge of Kings Tableland
In these environments rain can have an immediate effect. Many shrubs and trees we saw had bright green new growth or had begun to bloom.
Mountains Devil
Montbretia - though very pretty this is actually an introduced weed
I don't know the name of this plant which we found on the dry and dusty
tablelands but the flowers are tiny, about 1 mm (.04 inches)
We even found tadpoles swimming in a pool of rainwater on top of a huge flat rock in the tablelands. Other wet depressions were empty which suggests that the frogs somehow knew which puddle would be deep enough to last until their babies became frogs themselves.
One of the most iconic rock formations in the Blue Mountains, the Three Sisters.
I'm thoroughly enjoying your blog. Thanks for sharing your journey and for taking the time to so clearly describe and photograph your adventures.
ReplyDeleteEileen