I love packing up my backpack - it usually means an adventure is ahead. This time it was a day trip to the Royal National Park located 1.5 hours south of Sydney. We followed the sandy trail out of the town of Bundeena, through beaches and along the beautiful coast.

I noticed all these tiny holes in the sand on the trail and finally stopped to get a better look - and that is when I saw the most massive ant I have ever seen! It's hard to tell from the photo, but these guys were 10x the size of normal ants back home. My friend alerted me not to get too close, as the bite from one of these is painful.

When we got to Shelley Beach we took a break to search for seashells and admire the beautiful red cliffs.

There were also blue bottle jellyfish all washed up along shore - they pop if you step on one, but watch out for the sting!

We continued a bit further until we found a sandy cove to swim at. We were not alone though, and ended up sharing the small beach with a couple other people. From the lack of clothing worn we soon realised we had stumbled across a nude beach. 

A quick swim, lunch break and a few snail races later we headed back along the trail towards the ferry. We met with an unexpected visitor though - a red-bellied black snake, which is a poisonous snake common in eastern Australia. I may label myself as outdoorsy and love nothing more than a long exerting hike, but seeing a deadly snake on the trail made me wish I was back safe in my bed. I was terrified, and it took us 20 minutes of brainstorming and contemplating what to do before the snake slithered off into the tall grass. We tiptoed along the trail and crossed the final stretch of beach into town. We celebrated our escape of a venomous death with ice cream and waited for the ferry back to Sydney.