Leeches! (in Wollongong 2)

1/26/11 - Leeches! 

Ah, yes. Don't want to forget the one _small_ annoyance, which interrupted the fun of our second canyon. Don't want to forget  Galen's squeal of discovery nor the panic in Margaret's voice as she repeatedly failed to prise the bloody parasite off him... 

And as we soon discovered, there were _lots_ of them...

 For our second canyon, we chose a nontechnical trip which required "lilos" (inflatable rafts) due to the vast amount of swimming.  It was super-fun, except for one thing.  The leeches got us on the hike in and out.  Craftily, they slimed their way up shrubs and to the tops of tall grass and waited for us to walk by.  I never saw one pounce, but I'm sure that's what they did, before oozing into our socks and under the waistbands of swimming trunks to gorge themselves. 


Once we reached the canyon, put on  wetsuits and got in the water, we were safe. But we knew they'd be waiting for us on the hike out...

Just inflated the"lilos" - now it's time for fun.

Three technical canyons entered the river along the length we swam - they were quite tantalizing!  This is the mouth of  Serendipity.

The mouth of Whungee Wheengee was incredibly dark and narrow!  I so wished we had more time for exploration!

Waterfall of Moss ends in an abseil, so we couldn't explore this side canyon.

This is the view from the hike out at sunset

The Eucalyptus were especially pretty in the afternoon light.