The Blue Mountains
In Scotland and Wales, Central Europe and New Zealand, a mountain is a large conical-ish object with a pointed summit often topped by a cap of snow. In the great dividing range of Eastern Australia however, the Blue Mountains are not quite the shape or the colour that an international traveller expects them to be. This is not a tectonic crumple zone; these ‘mountains’ are formed by gentle erosion of sandstone over millions of years. They are characterised by sheer brown cliffs and deep tree-covered canyons that are home to some of the most remarkable and unusual species on the planet. The name comes from the blue haze that appears because the sun’s rays bounce off the oil droplets produced by indegenous trees such as the eucalypts.
After three days hiking around my legs ache and I’m absolutely shattered. I’ve mixed with the crowds of tourists in the most popular spots and ridden what claims to be the steepest passenger railway in the world, but I’ve also managed to veer away from the beaten track and traverse paths that are no more than horizontal crevices half way up cliffs, seeing first hand some of the wierd and wonderful flaura and fauna that evolved whilst Australia was still isolated from the rest of the world.
