Southern Highlands Och aye guvnor

Sometimes in life you have to make a few sacrifices. In Canberra this means getting up at 6am on a Saturday morning to get the only train out of town. I was off to the hills and it was about 7C and drizzly. I was questioning my decision. From Canberra the train soon passed through Queanbeyan and then wound its way through Molonglo Gorge before coming out on the yellow tablelands surrounding Bungendore. Kangaroos and Magpies were aplenty and I even saw what was probably a swamp Wallaby, which are more black in colour. Hitting glamourous Goulburn, which seems to have a love affair with rusty bits of metal, my destination of Bundanoon followed 45 minutes later. Bundanoon was deathly quiet. The drizzle had passed but it was still cloudy and chilly.

The main attraction for me was nearby Morton National Park. It takes a bit of walking along some dirt roads (and past more roos), but there are rewards...

It's much like a sister of the Blue Mountains, only much quieter and even more untamed. I pretty much had the place to myself, just me and the birds sqwawking away in the thousands of trees lining the carved out sandstone valleys.

As well as the overlooks, there are numerous trails through the bush, dotted with all sorts of habitats (plenty of holes and crevices for snakes and spiders!) There are many of these termite mounds scatterted about, some just off the side of the road. They're pretty big, this one was a tall as me.

Here we are down in a bit of a Fern Tree Gully. You can see how the rain will rush through here and eventually head on down the sandstone cliffs into the valley.


More walking led me to a creek and a glow worm glen which was a bit pointless as you can only see them in the dark. This then looped back round into Bundanoon, so I checked out "Viewland Road" and "Panorama Drive" which were a bit misleading, given that there were no views or panoramas! The village did have a good country bakehouse including excellent caramel slices which kept me occupied until the train arrived for the trundle back to Canberra.

It will be good to go back there when the sun comes out, and there are a whole set of overlooks yet to discover...