Today, I set off down waterfall way to the one of the most distant waterfalls – Ebor Falls.

The falls are situated at the tip of the Guy Fawkes National Park, and they flow continuously.  It was a little over an hour’s drive from Armidale, and I encountered something bizarre – roadwork signs without any roadworks.

Now, one thing I’ve noticed about NSW roadworks is they tend to always be accompanied by a sign declaring that the roadwork speed limits are enforceable, like they were worried about them being disobeyed.  After today, I think I understand why – there were three roadwork signs insisting I drop from 100km/h to 60km/h, and only one had actual roadwork.  And even then, there weren’t any people there, but the bitumen layer was missing and I had to drive on dirt for a few hundred metres.  For the other two…there wasn’t even a difference in the surface of the road.

Roadwork people; if you want drivers to pay attention to your speed limit signs, take them away when you’re finished!  Make them relevant!  If the drivers know there’s only about a 1 in 3 chance of slowing down actually being necessary, a lot of them are going to get into the habit of not hitting the brake until they see something to slow down for.

But enough about that – you want to hear about Ebor Falls.

Ebor Falls is actually two waterfalls – upper and lower.  Both have their own car parks and rest areas, and I chose to park near the lower falls because it also had a short track leading to the valley lookout.

When I hopped out of the car, this is the kind of landscape I was in:

On the short trot to the lookout, I spotted a grey fantail:

 

And a striated thornbill:

 

I’m surprised I saw two birds, actually.  It was only a couple of meters to the lookout:

Not much in terms of variability, but I do love the rolling, forested hills.

There was a little, secret waterfall beside the lookout.  I took a photo:

And a video:

 

I’m pretty sure this waterfall was only active because there’s been so much rain in the area lately – it came from a marshy area nearby, and probably only runs when the marsh overflows.

The wildflowers were blooming, and I took several photos:

These were everywhere, little splashes of colour amongst the scrub:

Banksia abounded as well:

Whatever this one is, it looks like something out of ‘Day of the Triffids’:

Actually, if you stare long enough, it looks like a snarling dragon.

I took a quick video to give you guys an idea of the birdsong I was hearing:

 

You can hear the waterfalls in the background as well.

Eventually, I came to the lower falls lookout, but you can see the upper falls as well:

A close-up of the lower falls:

Then I walked along the short, bitumen track to the upper falls.  I spotted a few birds along the way, like this Eastern Spinebill:

 

I got quite a few videos of silvereyes, but these ones were the best.  First, in the tree:

 

Now, on the ground:

 

Maybe I should have made an executive decision between those two, but I liked both videos.  It was interesting to see it feeding in the tree, and I just think birds look funny when they hop along the ground like that, so you get both!  Lucky you.

As I passed a small bush, I spotted a male superb fairy-wren.  I stopped and waited, until he gave me some good film:

 

I passed this giant ant nest or termite mound when I had drawn level with the lower falls and was starting to walk towards the upper falls:

There was no lookout at this point along the trek, but through the trees I did notice some amazing granite formations right next to the waterfall:

Weird, huh?  It’s probably where running water eroded the rock when the river floods (or something like that), but it looks like it’s been deliberately chiselled.

This picture isn’t anything particularly special, but I thought it was interesting to see how you could follow the path of the river even if you can’t see it:

Where the trees slope downwards and seem to meet each other marks the course of the river.

More interesting formations:

These I found interesting because you can clearly see ‘shelves’ of rock.  You can just see the river at the very bottom of the photo, then there’s a ‘shelf’ of grass and trees, then steep cliffs, then another shelf, and so on.

The river you can barely glimpse in the above photo:

It’s clearly flowing very fast.  Though at this point it’s gone down one waterfall and is rushing towards another, so I suppose that makes sense.

And the birds aren’t over yet!  This is a White-eared Honeyeater:

 

Eventually, I reached the upper falls:

I took video too:

 

Another photo I took purely for the rocks.  You can see where the ‘chiselling’ has crumbled away:

There’s probably proper words for that, but I’m trying to write a blog post, not blind you with science (this time).

This is a kookaburra I spotted at the top of the falls.  I got it from three angles as it turned its head:

I had to wait to get those profile views; once it started looking at me it took a while to turn away.  I think a lot of birds are intrigued by light reflecting off the camera lens.

Then it was time to head back to the car.  On the way back, I spotted a female superb fairy-wren:

 

Okay, I’m not one hundred percent sure she’s a superb fairy-wren, specifically, but she was in the same bush the male I saw earlier was, so it seems a safe bet.

I also managed to film a brown thornbill for about two seconds:

 

Well, technically four seconds, but I’m pretty sure it was only one that gave you a good look at it.

My last discovery was an insect.  Check out what I found by the side of the path:

That out-of-focus green line?  That’s a blade of grass.  Not one of those thin ones, either – that’s regular-sized.  This ant was huge!  Maybe 3cm long!  And check those pincers!  I used my zoom for this one, because I didn’t want to know what being bitten by it felt like.

Then I left Ebor Falls and headed back to Turtle Shell.  And I’m quite glad to have finished typing this up because I kept having to stop myself from typing Erebor instead of Ebor.  I blame Dad – he was the one who introduced me to Lord of the Rings, all those years ago.