On February 20th, we took the train an hour and a half northwest of Sydney to Richmond where Uncle Tom and Aunt Linda's friend Christa picked us up. We went on a 3.5 hour hike (bushwalk) in the blue mountains. It was overcast and humid, but it didn't rain until that night. Here are the pictures:
Where we parked the car at the top of the trail, there were all of these bugs on every available surface. They looked like lightning bugs to Brendan and I, but Christa didn't think that those lived in Australia.
This is the trail. It was a fire brigade access road that was pretty steep at some parts, which was especially noticed on the way back up.
On the first part of the hike, the trail was lined by sandstone cliffs like these.
Brendan in front of a cool rock
More sandstone
These bug shells were clinging to trees here and there. They were about 2" long and pretty hard. Not sure what kind of bug left them there.
More cliffs
This termite mound is the coolest thing we saw. There were several of them in the lowlands near this creek we were walking along. This one was about 3' tall, but some were taller.
Here is a dark photo of the waterfall where the trail ended and we turned around. It was very lush, green and tropical here in contrast to the dry terrain that was higher up.
