The Blue mountains was put onto the World Heritage List in 2000. There is a great variety of ecosystems, plant and animal species. On various hiking tracks you can watch the beautiful red colored sandstone cliffs as well as vast eucalypt forests. They say that the blue dust hanging over the mountains comes from the ethereal oil released from the leaves of those eucalypt trees. I guess it’s quite healthy to hike in those forests then – at least you don’t run in danger of getting a flu (maybe when hiking in 30°C that would be unlikely anyway ..). The air tastes quite normal anyway, not like those inhaling baths you use when trying to get rid of a cold. Eucalypt trees are really beautiful with their smooth silver bark, their distinct shape and dark leathery leaves.
In sheltered places like in gorges the forest suddenly changes into a quite dark, closed temperate rainforest with a large variety of different ferns, also those strange tree ferns (thought they would only grow in New Zealand; again learned something new). When you climb up to a plateau you find yourself in the middle of shrub with hard leaved species adapted to drought. In between those shrub thickets there are here and there some wildflower meadows.
One day when driving from a bush camping site to the start to another hiking path I stopped at such a meadow to take pictures of wildflowers covered in with small pearls of morning dew. During the night, the temperature usually falls somewhat below 20 degrees but rises immediately to around 30 degrees – as soon as the sun is shining through the rising morning mist. While walking up and down the meadow, I suddenly see a small glittering plant: Drosera auriculata, a sundew!! Having been a carnivorous plant enthusiast for over 10 years I have been growing some Australian species (there is a network of hobby growers who exchange seed and plants). I know this strange erect sundew from those species list, pictures and growing instructions. And here it is right in front of me growing on pure sand and in a meadow – not a bog like I would have expected!! It takes at least half an hour photo- and admiring break until I manage to continue my way.
Another surprising cp highlight was a cliff at Govetts : In the last hour of a long, beautiful but also exhausting hike along the cliffs, all the way down into the Grose valley I was on my way up the cliff towards the parking lot. I passed a beautiful water fall, and then the trail led up close to the rocks. Water is seeping through the rocks and keeps the rock surfaces constantly wet. In some places I have to go through little waterfalls giving me nice refreshment. The cliffs are covered by a thick mat of vegetation, different kind of flowers and – I can hardly believe my eyes – Drosera binata!! It’s another “old friend” of mine I know from botanical gardens back in Europe – and it is growing on and hanging from the cliffs here! Bogs on the rocks .. There are a lot more cp species out here: Some Droseras, a pygmy Drosera (nooo idea!) and a terrestrial Utricularia with beautiful big light violet flowers. It takes ages for me to walk that last bit of the trail – and not only because of the steepness! In the end I have to hurry up anyway to get out of the valley and to the next camping site before sunset.
Drosera binata
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