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| A mad emu! |
The next day of our tour found us arising around 0300.
Obviously we were still dealing with jet lag and hadn’t adjusted to local time,
but we felt good and were ready to roll.
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| Southern cassowary |
Our tour bus arrived around 0720 and
we headed out for a Blue Mountains Eco Tour.
The Blue Mountains, a UNESCO World
Heritage Region, lie about 60 miles west of Sydney near Katoomba, and is known
for its scenery, steep cliffs, eucalyptus forests, and waterfalls. On the way
to the Blue Mountain area, we stopped at the Featherdale Wildlife Park to view
some native Aussie species of birds and mammals.
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| We even have penguins |
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| Aaaaaahhh! |
The notable bird species were
the emu, Southern cassowary, pied eyed oystercatchers, a variety of pigeons, owls,
kites, catbirds, and all kinds of parrots and cockatoos.
As for the marsupial mammals,
we saw wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, pademelons (small wallabies), quokkas,
koalas, and a whole slew of bats and flying squirrels.
Next we traveled to the village of Wentworth Falls which is
a very picturesque, historic village with a good collection of Victorian
buildings.
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| Kangaroo |
Just outside the village we stopped at Wentworth Falls Lookout which
provided spectacular views of the Jamison Valley.
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| A wombat |
We descended about 300 feet
on a trail that took us to a lookout providing a wonderful view of the
waterfalls.
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| Wentworth Falls |
The surrounding mountains are colorful sandstone and the scenery
reminded us of a small scale Grand Canyon, only with more vegetation. Traveling
on to Eaglehawk Lookout, we viewed the sandstone formation named The Three
Sisters.
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| The Three Sisters |
This formation of eroded sandstone is similar to the hoodoos found in
the western U.S. Our guide provided an interesting aboriginal story as to how
this formation was formed.
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| Govett's Leap |
We stopped at Blackheath Golf Club, an old restored luxury
hotel once the playground for the very rich back in the 1800’s. During lunch a
nasty storm blew up which limited picture taking and Jane’s visit to the
adjacent gift shop. On to Govett’s Leap (leap is a Scottish word for
waterfall), one of the most famous lookouts in Australia.
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| Flowers at Mt. Tomah |
While the volume of
water at this fall is not very great by most standards, the 600 foot drop to
the base of the cliff is impressive. The lookout also provides a sweeping view
of the valley which ends at the Grose Wilderness. Our final stop was Mt. Tomah
Botanic Gardens where our guide treated us with a champagne toast and Tim Tams-
a popular chocolate covered cookie that was very delicious.
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| Unusual but beautiful |
We toured the
gardens and Capt. Larry was able to gather some more interesting pictures for
his flower album. We returned to our hotel and then headed out to find an ATM
and some supper. All of the climbing and walking tired us out and we turned in
early for tomorrow’s early departure to Alice Springs.
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| Really different |
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