Blue Mountains, NSW trip photos

[SnowFella]

Well, just back from a short break up the mountains, bit of a change of venue from our last beachside holiday to say the least. Amazing in a way though that by just driving an hour East I'm at the beach while going an equal distance West and it's Mountain country.
Spent 3 days in a small self contained cabin at the edge of one of NSW's national parks, within walking distance to a lookout with stunning views over the valleys below and having had somewhat of a photo spark kindled as of late it was time to try out all the new lenses that have arrived and at the same time finally figure the old camera out. A few hundred photos later, some that turned out and alot that didn't I think I'm starting to get the hang of things. Just wish I had something wider than 28mm to play with as some of the views really could of done with a wide angle lens.
Following photos are jpg's straight out of the camera without any editing, going to give a select few some post processing and crop at a later stage.

Day 1: Having just unpacked I dragged the wife along to the lookout for some quick snaps. Unfortunately I forgot to turn the image stabilisation on in the camera so nothing really came out sharp, lessons learned!
View from Evan's Lookout over Grose Valley.


Sheer sandstone cliff faces leading down into the valley. I'm no good with heights so standing at the edge of the lookout gives me chills to say the least, 100 meter vertical drop.


And with it nearly being winter down here this ended up our best friend...and worst enemy as my old army skills with a woodfire proved to much. Cabin ended up nearly a sauna


Day 2: Whole day spent holed up in the cabin as winter weather closed in with rain and fog. Few gaps in the weather had me out hunting the local parrots.
8am from the front porch, rain settled for a bit but the fog had truly set in and didn't really lift all day.


Didn't have to hunt far for local wildlife though, Crimson Rosella.


And male King parrot


Same view as above at 5pm, just no letup at all


Day 3: Weather finally let up, luckilly as the day started with feeding the local birds.
Wife had some reservations of ending up a feeding platform. Crimson Rosella's and what I think is a female King parrot


Crimson Rosella


And another one


Have to come back to the rest as the POS laptop has shat itself and needs a reboot or perhaps wooden stake through the harddrive.

[SnowFella]

Alright, back from reboot with hopefully the rest.

Spent the rest of the day visiting Mount Tomah Botanical gardens, at 1000m above sealevel mainly cool climate plants and at near winter not much was in bloom.
Still not a bad view down over the valleys with the fall colours.


Small artificial waterfall in the gardens.


Plain booring pine right....nope, Wollemi pine


And it's growing no more than a stonesthrow from this


And another bird capture, no idea what this little guy is other than darn hard to catch in focus!


Day 4: Another clear day and unfortunately our last.
Started out with some other birds visiting, had to run and get the already packed camera gear back out.
Male Gang-gang Cockatoo


Female


Having packed up we headed for another lookout to check out the views, this time Govetts Leap


Right next to the lookout is Bridal Veil Falls.


Caught it at just the right time, morning sun had the bottom of the falls throw off a rainbow effect


Last capture of the day ended up being a New Holland Honeyeater taken during out walk from the lookout to the top of the falls.

[majcka]

Seems like you had a veeeery good time.

[Micaela]

Beautiful trip congrats. I love your photos, especially that little guy you don't know what it is, with that nice blue tail. Thank you for sharing your photos.

[SnowFella]

Cheers, had a ball apart from the shoddy weather on day 2, a wedding anniversary well spent I'd say. Then again can't complain about spending a day infront of the fireplace snuggled up watching movies, likely just the kinda thing the doctors would recommend after having been shipped off by ambulace with chestpain no more than a week and a half ago. Still have some more tests to got through before getting an all clear but it's still on my mind and I'm adjusting to a slower kinda pace, not even 40 yet so it's way to early for what I went through.

[daiv]

Wow! Looks like a fantastic vacation. I know I'd have been thrilled to follow the same itinerary as you.

I can't help but wonder how many waterfalls in the world are named "Bridal Veil Fallls" I'll save DaveW the trouble and add this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridal_Veil_Falls" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But there is no way that is an exhaustive list, I'm sure.

Daiv

[SnowFella]

There is indeed a whole heap of them, guessing anyone seeing a whispy fall would think it looks like a bridal veil. Before we got there I had plans of following a walking track down to the bottom of the falls but quickly changed my mind when I saw exactly how far down it was, instead followed a clifftop track to the mouth of the fall. Proved to be enough of a walk that my legs are aching today

There's a second fall on the opposite side of the lookout but we haven't had much rain lately so it wasn't running.

Passed on going to what likely is the most common tourist stop up in the mountains, Echo point lookout, as it's just to commercialised nowadays. Does have it's advantages though as there's both a cablecar and railway to get you down into the valley.
Railway is according to them the steepest in the world at 52degrees, used to be an old mining track.
http://youtu.be/CUCzD_9uI_k

That spot even come with it's own live web camera for anyone wanting to see the view out over the valley live....can even take control of the camera to pan and zoom.
http://www.scenicworld.com.au/explore-o ... k/web-cam/

[JimHSoars]

Snow:

That part of OZ is Beautiful!

Are the trees in the Grose Valley deciduous or conifers?

- Jim

[SnowFella]

From what I can find the majority of trees down in the valley are Blue Gum eucalyptus and other eucalyptus (gum tree) species so the valleys stay green all year around. Also from history part of why it's called the Blue mountains, the trees give off eucalyptus vapour on warm days giving the area appear with a blue tinge when viewed from a distance. You can fainly make it out in the wide view out over the valley in the Govetts Leap photo.
Or even better in this photo from Wiki, taken of Jamison Valley however.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... v_2008.jpg

Kinda makes the whole area interesting to say the least during bushfire season, there's no real road access down into Grose Valley and all those eucalyptus trees are highly flammable. Last real fire down in the valley was in 2006 and that burned for a month before a change in weather put it out. No properties was lost though but it got just alittle bit to close for comfort, most of the taller trees around the cabin area show burn marks on the stems.

[Peterthecactusguy]

Wow! Looks like a fantastic vacation. I know I'd have been thrilled to follow the same itinerary as you.

I can't help but wonder how many waterfalls in the world are named "Bridal Veil Fallls" I'll save DaveW the trouble and add this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridal_Veil_Falls" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But there is no way that is an exhaustive list, I'm sure.

Daiv

hahaha I knew of two of them, the one in AZ, and the one in NY, ya know part of Niagara falls

[Peterthecactusguy]

Snowfella, looks like a great vacation. One time when we went on vacation to Maine in August a cold front came through and we had thunderstorms and rain, and then it was clear and very cold. So we built a fire in the woodstove and everyone yelled at me because they were hot...I used an electric blanket in my bedroom cause it was in the 30s and the house wasn't heated (it was summer!)

[SnowFella]

Can't really say it was cold by any standards, the clear nights we had didn't bring temperatures down further than 5C/~40F. Nothing like the -38C/-36F I have suffered through while camping out in tents once back home, now that built character!

And as I hung the wife out while bird feeding here's one of me, shamelessly stolen from her facebook page.