Newnes State Forest

With our snazzy new tent in hand, we headed out for our first over-night excursion! We decided to go Sun/Mon so we'd miss a little bit of the weekend traffic. So we headed west, across the Blue Mountains, toward Lithgow, and ended up in Newnes State Forest (pronounced "noons"). We stopped in Lithgow at a hot bread shop and picked up some food (meat pies, a sausage roll, some things with ham and capsicum - all really good!). Then we headed up the dirt road in our little low-rider (our car has no clearance).

So a fast note about Newnes SF. It's seems to be a big recreational hub, which mostly means it's a place for people to drive crazy. You either take your big ol' 4WD truck off on side roads that have ruts big enough to swallow our entire car and see how long it takes to break an axle, blow a tire, or get stuck, OR you take your dirt bike and speed along the plateau until you wipe out or run into a kangaroo. It has a very testosterone-ish "I drink my rum from a can and my truck's bigger than your truck" kind of feel. So we felt a little out of place putting along in our little car, or stopped on the side of the road to watch birds. But we drove to the far end of the road, just before it becomes national park, and it got a lot quieter.

On Sunday we meandered around the woods checking out termite mounds, looking at flowers (which are great, right now), and watching birds & bugs.
Ben and Ani checking out a termite mound:

Kerry and Ani enjoying the flowers:

Then Monday we headed into the national park to the glow worm tunnel! This used to be a big mining area, and they made all these crazy tunnels so the trains could negotiate the steep edge of the plateau. One of the tunnels curves 180 degrees, so it gets really dark in the middle. When they abandoned it, glow worms took over, and it's so neat! And on the hike back to the car, we spotted our first male lyre bird - another very cool animal!