From the Dardanelles to the Mountains of Peru

…except the other way around (points if you got the reference). I’ve been delaying this post about going to the Blue Mountains just because I hadn’t bothered sorting through the pics, but I better post these before I forget (also because I don’t have that many other photos at the moment).

I was supposed to go with the Nottingham guy I met when I was at the beach hostel, but he had some issues waking up in time (lol it was a Sunday morning) so he didn’t make it. I took the train to Katoomba, which is the largest town in the region, and started out walking towards the Three Sisters, the most famous landmark of the Blue Mountains, though I decided to duck off to the right and take the edge walk towards the Three Sisters instead, starting at the Katoomba falls (a lady from Melbourne was kind enough to take the only picture of me I got that day).

I could see and hear sulfur-crested cockatoos flying across the top of the canopy far below, and occasionally flapping up to the upper trees on the ledge, but I didn’t get a good look at any until later.

I saw some cool black birds that I thought at first were Australian Magpies, but now I think were Currawongs. They made some funky noises, and reminded me of the oropendolas in the Amazon because they were really loud and bopping around in the trees.

I walked along the edge until I got to the Three Sisters, and saw a lot of burned areas that I think they did deliberately when they installed this cable car across part of the valley.

 

It was mostly eucalypts and banksias and other plants that love fire, so there was a lot of new growth surrounding the blackened trunks. A few trees were particularly cool. Check out the greenery growing right out of the charred wood.

 

Here’s a shot of the Three Sisters, when I made it there, although it’s not as glamourous as the pics I got of it in 2009, when it was a lot sunnier. 

After confirming where the trails were, I kept going along the cliff until I got to the Sisters themselves, where you could walk across a short platform and sit underneath the nearest one. This picture is only cool when you know that it’s under one of the sisters, haha.

That walk was the first part of the Giant Stairway that has over 900 steps (yikes) and takes you all the way down to the valley below in a pretty steep and straight shot (I actually had to rest for a bit because of all the stepping down). 

Once in the valley, the terrain is a lot moister and the canopy full of lianas, ferns, and other rainforesty-type plants. I looked at my trail map and decided to avoid going straight up the Giant Stairway and instead go along the bottom and come up at Leura falls, which is the next train stop on the way back to Sydney but not all that far from Katoomba. Here’s my route on the map, which was a nice combination of cliffside scenic walking, and valley-floor rainforest trekking (a lot calmer with fewer people). The long bit that I did along the forest floor was called the Dardanelles (hence the post title) and the trail was created to commemorate World War I.

I saw a bunch of cute squeaky birds which I could not hope to photograph or identify and one pretty orange bird that I think was a rufous fantail. In a clearing, though, I came across a drab brown ground bird that looked pretty ordinary but turned out to be a lyrebird, which was really exciting because they are one of the best mimickers in the world (check out David Attenborough’s awesome footage of lyrebirds imitating all sorts of things, from camera shutters to chainsaws, which is actually kind of sad since they shouldn’t be hearing those sorts of things that often in the wild). Anyway here’s my not-so-great tree cover photo of it, and I didn’t hear it talking at all.

Climbing back up to the cliff was a bit rough, but it was broken up by lots of mini waterfalls and mini vistas (as I got higher). It was actually really damp in places, which I wasn’t expecting given the dryness of the top ground, and I had to duck around puddles and fend off drips so they wouldn’t get on my camera and binocs. Here’s what I think were the Leura Cascades (things were only vaguely labeled).

I had some luck when I got towards the top of the Leura trail, and got a perfectly framed shot of this chilled-out cockatoo who only lazily glanced in my direction even when I got quite close. My best pic of the day, I think.

Ooh, I also saw a pretty pair of parrots that I think were Crimson Rosellas (thanks for the tip-off, Andrew). One was strikingly blue and red (note my weird flash-under-trees photo) but the other was sort of streaky and greenish, which I think meant it was a juvenile (although I thought it was a female, it was confusing in my bird book since there are a lot of colour variations).

I was pretty tired by this point, and was relieved when I could get back to the main road and head towards the train station, but first I was diverted through the Leura Park, which was pretty nice. I heard a few rustles and lots of squeaking birds, but didn’t see any non-avian fauna there, or at any other point in the day. 

After a quick stop at Woolworths to get a banana and a mini ice cream, I got back on the long train ride back (it was an annoying day to travel, since they were doing track maintenance so at one point you had to get off the train and take a bus the remainder of the way, which added another half hour to the 2-hour trip, ah well).

I was pretty exhausted when I got back (meaning a not-so-great start to the 7 days of flyering and Expo work that were to follow) but I was pleased that I had seen so much diversity of the forest in my short 6 hours there.

Still waiting for those mammals, though…