Blue Mountains

Chris had July 4th off from work, so we were able to take advantage of the long weekend and go up to the Blue Mountains! Now - these mountains are nothing compared to what we're used to back in Washington state. But they're not too shabby.

We found two things very interesting about these mountains. First, the vegetation made it feel very "Jurassic". You'll see throughout the photos that the vegetation was very jungle-like in some places! Second, in some of the shots you can see a blue haze between the camera and the trees in the background. This blue haze is oils from the eucalyptus trees that are released into the air. It was really quite beautiful.

Cliffs through the trees


Checking out the "Three Sisters" (rock formation behind Chris


The Japanese tourists LOOOVED Ethan. They kept holding his hand and taking his picture and talking to him. (The only thing I understood was "kawaii", which I knew because my sister in law, Keiko, taught it to me when they were visiting! I was pretty proud of myself for picking out that word. It means "cute" :).


Riding a steep railway from the top of the cliffs to the bottom jungle.


The walk at the bottom of the cliff was really beautiful! I've never seen vines in real life before! They were so cool.


Cool vines hanging from the trees


You can see the blue haze I was talking about in the beginning of the post


We went on a short bushwalk to see the sunset :)






Ethan's first bath in a real bathtub! We don't have a tub in our apartment in Canberra so when we're traveling we like to take advantage of the bathtubs! Baths are so much more fun than showers.




The next day we went on a bushwalk along the Leura Cascaes (area before the waterfall). It was so beautiful to walk beside the rushing water. The kids did great (especially considering Chris carried Em most of the way and Ethan stayed in the Ergo on me!)


Throwing rocks into the water


Ethan fell asleep


The end of the bushwalk


Here's the end of another much shorter bushwalk


As long as we encouraged her to count the stairs, she LOVED going up stairs :)


Australia has lots of fun playgrounds :)


More beautiful scenery


The Three Sisters at dusk


On our way home we visited Jenolan Caves. Here's our group walking down into the caves.


Beautiful formations




Em decided she didn't want to walk down stairs anymore. I believe my words to Chris were something along the lines of "stop taking pictures and come help her!".


She adjusted quickly and loved to count the stairs :)