Cakelaw's Travel Tales

On my second day in the Blue Mountains, I did a half day eco tour with Tim Tranter of Tread Lightly Ecotours .  I cannot speak highly enough of Tim - he is a trained ecologist who lectures at universities both in Australia and in the US, and is extremely knowledgeable about the Blue Mountains, having lived there for over 40 years.  Tim's tours cover biology, geography, geology, botany, meteorology, forest management and aboriginal culture.  What is also terrific is that Tim will tailor the tour to suit your interests and fitness levels. Tim picked me up from my hotel in Katoomba before embarking on the tour. Tim took us on The Valley of the Waters walking tour, showcasing various types of forest (including rainforest), Empress Falls and Queen Victoria Lookout. The start of the tour contrasts eucalypt forest with scrubby grassland: Tim then showed us the Geebung bush, which grows edible fruits.  The Geebung bush is a member of the Protea family.  Ti...

If you watch the news at all, wherever you may be in the world, you will know that Australia is in the middle of  devastating bushfire season.  Australia suffers bushfires at least somewhere every year, but this year is different because of the number of locations  and sheer size of the areas affected.  It will take years (if ever) for the affected areas to fully recover.  Many people and animals have lost their lives, many more have been severely injured or lost everything they owned. There are also knock-on effects beyond the affected regions, including economic impact and the effects of smoke pollution.  New South Wales is one of the states badly hit by bushfires, from the north to the south.  In the first week of November 2019, I spent a lovely week travelling through various regions of New South Wales, at least some of which will now have been burnt out. I think it is a fitting time to celebrate the beauty of these regions by po...

On the last day of our tour, we bade farewell to Kakadu and visited Litchfield National Park and Howard Springs Nature Park.  It was another scorching hot day in the Territory, so I was pleased that we were going to be near water.  Even better, we were promised a swim in the rock pools if we desired it - hooray! Our first stop in Litchfield National Park was at the Magnetic Termite Mounds and Cathedral Termite Mounds.  The Magnetic Termite Mounds are so called because they are aligned north to south, and there are heaps of them  on display in a large field.  There are many more than in this photo: Here's a close up of one of the mounds: Just across the way from the Magnetic Termite Mounds are the Cathedral Termite Mounds, so called because of their towering structure: This mound is over four metres tall.  It is hard to believe that something as small as termites could build such a magnificent structure. Having seen the termite moun...