HILLEND TO BETHUNGRA

In late October 2012, after departing the beautiful Capertee Valley, we travelled south through inland NSW visiting the historic gold mining town of Hillend. While exploring the sights of this unique National Park, a couple of colourful locals gave us pause to stop and snap some pictures. 

Australian King Parrot -male

Crimson Rosella

We've seen our share of wild rabbits on our travels but a couple of big and very dark specimens were a surprise sighting on one of our sight seeing walks.

At Bellevue Hill Reserve in Cowra some lovely blooms were showing well in the spring sunshine. Any assistance with identifying these would be appreciated. 

We had no trouble ID'ing this bird, a lifer for both of us, after first hearing the call then finding it perched high up on a dead limb, from where it conveniently flew down for a more photogenic pose.

Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo

Near our campsite at Bethungra Dam Reserve a cockatoo kept us amused with its wonderful antics, responding to the calls of some mates nearby.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

Cheers & Happy Birding

BLUE MOUNTAINS AND BEYOND

After leaving the Capertee Valley we headed to Lithgow, to use as a base for exploring the iconic Blue Mountains. Having never visited the area before and thinking it was a bit of a tourist trap and probably over rated, we were blown away by the stunning vistas and sheer size of  this virtually untouched wilderness on Sydney's doorstep.  

Grose Valley

The weather was perfect on our one and only day of exploring. The next three days it turned nasty with a wet, cold, windy change coming through, apparently not unusual in these parts. There was a plethora of walking tracks to choose from and with our limited time we settled for a couple of the shorter ones and even these were quite steep in parts. The bird life wasn't prolific but one of the more colourful ones caught my eye.

Crimson Rosella

The wildflowers were actually more conspicuous than the birds and with the aid of this very helpful website:  http://www.waratahsoftware.com.au/wp_flora_bluemountains.html  I was able to identify some of the specimens I photographed.

Trigger Plant

Mountain Devil

??????

The Blue Mountains is another one of those places that has to be seen to be believed and pictures do not do it justice. A good week here would probably just scratch the surface.

Three Sisters

The weather finally improved on our way to Canberra and driving through the countryside one of the most common birds was the Nankeen Kestrel. I was able to pull up and get a quick shot of this male before he took off to do what they normally do, hover above the paddocks in search of prey.

Nankeen Kestrel

While in Canberra we visited the Australian National Botanic Gardens, a must see for anyone even remotely interested in plants. I could have sworn I was back in Queensland when we walked through the huge rainforest gully section. I was waiting for a Pitta to bounce out across the pathway! 

How they have created this habitat in a climate of extremes defies the imagination.  

"Fir0002/Flagstaffotos".

Rainforest Walk - ANBG 

This juvenile Water Dragon was sunning itself on a rock along the walk.

Eastern Water Dragon

And a Raven was eyeing off our picnic lunch.

Australian Raven

One of the more common plants were these pretty flowers along another of the many walks through the gardens.

Christmas Bells

There was also a single young Wollemi Pine, a critically endangered species with less than one hundred trees growing in the wild not far from the Capertee Valley, in Wollemi National Park. It's a wonder they didn't have an armed guard keeping an eye on this one!

Wollemi Pine