RHH's photos with the keyword: new south wales

This was taken on our last night in Australia. Returning from the Blue Mountains by train, we walked from the station to Circular Quay where we stopped briefly for some photos before going on to our guest house which we would leave a few hours later to catch the train again to the airport.

The Grand stairway is in the Blue Mountains next to Wentworth Falls and takes you down 998 steps cut into sheer cliff 300 meters high. This was taken from the stairway, but I wish I had taken some photos that showed how steep this stairway is. At the time, however, I was focusing on getting down and not thinking much about photos.

Weeping Rock is a waterfall on Jamison Creek above the much larger Wentworth Falls. We took photos here (this photo is my wife's) before hiking down the Grand Stairway to the National Pass track from Wentworth Falls to Empress Falls.

The Little Corella is a species of small Cockatoo native to Australia and New Guinea. We saw a flock of them on the lawn at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, one of the many new birds we saw in Australia.

Empress Falls is at one end of the National Pass trail through the Blue Mountains. We came back out of the Valley of the Waters near this falls, one of the most beautiful parts of a beautiful trail.

Another shot of Bondi Beach from the hill just south of the beach. It was later in the day when we were at Bondi and by the time we walked to Tamarama Beach along the cliffs it was nearly dark. These places are not my favorite haunts, but the others wanted to go and the when the photo was taken the light and shadow and color of the water made a nice scene, or so I thought. There were no surfers either, since there was little wave action.

Not really a rose at all, this is a well-known Australian wildflower. When we found it along the National Pass trail it was growing tangled in other plants and shrubs, and there were not a lot of flowers open.

This was almost the last picture I took in Australia. After returning from the Blue Mountains I went to the roof of The Rocks Youth Hostel where we were staying and took some time exposures of the Harbor Bridge, the Opera House and Circular Quay. We were up early the next morning to catch our flight back home.

This is the trail we followed in the Blue Mountains from Wentworth Falls to Empress Falls. It is described in the New South Wales National Parks website as follows, "Built into the side of the cliff, the National Pass is a spectacular walking track offering unrivalled views of the many natural wonders of the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains National Park." It was everything it was promised to be and more.

This was the view from Echo Point in Katoomba, the last stop on our Australian trip. The formations on the lower left are the Three Sisters and the flat-topped mountain in the distance is Mount Solitary, all in the southern Blue Mountains. By the time we walked back to downtown Katoomba and had our evening meal there it was dark and we traveled in the dark back to Sydney to pack and get ready to leave next morning.

These were photographed in the Blue Mountains along Jamison Creek near Wentworth Falls and were the third Banksia species we found in Australia. They were at the peak of their bloom and were one of the highlights of our hikes in the Blue Mountains.

Mackenzie's Point is south of Bondi Beach in Sydney and along the cliffs there. The walk, though in the city, is worthwhile for its strangely sculptured sandstone formations.

This is another photo from the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. After taking the train to Wentworth, we followed Darwin's Walk along Jamison Creek to Wentworth Falls and then went down the Grand Stairway to the bottom of Wentworth Falls. Jamison Creek eventually becomes Wentworth Falls, dropping 167 meters (614 feet) into the valley below.

On our last day in Australia we took the train from Sydney to the Blue Mountains and stopped first at Wentworth, where we followed the Charles Darwin Walk to the top of Wentworth Falls, took the grand Staircase down to the bottom of the falls and then hiked the National Pass trail along the cliffs to Sylvia Falls and Empress Falls before returning to Wentworth and then on to Katoomba.

On the next to the last day of our Australia trip we walked the Harbor Bridge, from which this photo was taken, explored Circular Quay and the Opera House, saw some of the Botanical Gardens, visited Bondi Beach and walked the cliffs there. This was taken early in the day and shows the Opera House, Circular Quay and part of the skyline.

Taken at Lake Ainsworth, one of the Tea Tree lakes, it is obvious in this picture why they are called that. The water is colored by the Swamp Paperbark trees, Tea Trees, that grow on the edges of the lake. It is a popular place for swimming but the lake was closed when we were there due to a problem with algae.

I had no idea what the plant was when I photographed these along the cliffs south of Bondi Beach. The bright blue color of these seeds caught my attention, but like so many things we saw in Australia we had no idea what we were looking at. Fizgig has identified them as one of the Flax Lilies.

This is the famous Bondi Beach, one of the better known surfer's beaches of the world, but without any surfers the day we were there. The photo was actually not even taken from the beach but from the cliff walk further to the southwest. Thought I'd better post a picture of the beach, though, since we have have a TV program in our area about a veterinarian from the Bondi Beach. The main interest for me was the light on the waves and not the beach or its fame.