Our fourth day was essentially an "Aboriginal History Day". We drove down to the foothills just outside Sydney to visit a park that had as its centerpiece a hike thru the bush to a cave that featured rock art by the local aboriginal tribe - the Daruk. These hand prints are 1600 years old, and were amazing to view up close. Story is that they were first discovered in 1913 by a search party looking for a lost child.
The hike was a pretty, shaded walk next to a creek for a couple of miles all the way to the cave. One of the interesting stops was at this pool, where you can still see the gouges left by stone age aboriginal hunters as they sharpened their stone axes and tools in these grooves.
As we departed the caves and started up the path on the return leg of the hike I heard a rustling at my feet as a small snake slithered off the trail into the underbrush. Guess he'd been sunning himself before I happened along and disturbed him - nearly stepped on him in fact. Didn't think much of it at the time - he didn't look too threatening, had no particular markings, and I noted that he didn't have that diamond shaped head the most venomous snakes that I'm familiar with have, so I wasn't too concerned. Still, I was interested enough once we got home to do a Google search to see if I could identify him. Well, I did, and it turns out that what I nearly stepped on was the 2nd most deadly snake in Australia - the Eastern Brown Snake. As is the case with several of the most venomous snakes here, when agitated they'll actually come after you. Lucky for me he decided to retreat and not stand his ground when he sensed me approaching else my blogging career might have come to an abrupt end. He was well camouflaged - I never saw him until he moved.
Next day we returned to the Wentworth Falls area. We had been there before and thought the area was so pretty that we wanted to do some more hikes that we'd missed on our first visit . When we arrived about 9 AM this was the sight that greeted us - low-lying clouds filling bowl of the valley. Made for a pretty scene.
Looking down on the falls from a viewpoint above.
Our first hike was this one - the Charles Darwin Walk - named for the naturalist who came here in 1836 during his homeward voyage aboard the Beagle. It was earlier on this same trip (part of a 5 year voyage actually) that he visited the Galapagos Islands and started working out his theory of natural selection that was later published as The Origin of Species. Anyway, he apparently hired a guide and several horses and came up here during a stopover in Sydney. Stayed in the local hotel (still here) and walked this path one morning down to the falls.
A picturesque stop along the way.
And another. That area to the right is a little fern grotto that retreats back into a small cave. It was so inviting that we stopped here on the return trip to sit and have our lunch.
Our second hike was a little more ambitious. Called "The National Pass" hike, it's supposed to be the prettiest walk in the Blue Mountains - we sure wouldn't argue the point. It was really fabulous. Starts from the top of the cliff, then you descend about 200 steps down a very steep metal ladder to about halfway down the cliff face, where you then follow the (very) narrow track around and under several waterfalls for a couple of miles. It was really a magnificent walk, but not for the fainthearted. Gotta give Rita credit - she really doesn't like heights but she gutted this one out from start to finish. And believe me, the photo only hints at the scariness of some of the twists and turns.
At the edge of the abyss...Rita was pretty much memorizing the lace patterns of her boots at this point.
The reward for hanging in there was one of the nicest hikes we've ever been on, dotted with stream crossings like this one just in front of the waterfall you can see to the left, and which is actually a couple of hundred feet high - just couldn't fit it all into the photo.
Another waterfall along the route - all of them gorgeous. The reason most of our photos are of me is that Rita refused to let go of the hand rails...
And another sweeping panorama as we neared the end of the hike...much to Rita's relief.
Along the way we passed a tree where about 20 or 30 of these Sulphur Crested Cockatoos were roosting. We also have a flock of about 50 that comes home every evening to roost in the trees near our self-catering place in Mount Victoria.
Occasionally as we travel around we visit places that don't quite measure up to the expectation we had going in, whether derived from guide books or other research, but I must say that the Blue Mountains have proved to be even better than the hype - they're really fabulous. We've enjoyed our week here immensely and truly hate to leave. Gotta move along, however, this time to an area just north of the Hunter Valley called Barrington Tops. We'll be there for 4 nights.
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