Beauty in the bush

Today I am sharing a few of the pictures I took while wandering around in the Blue Mountains. Sometimes it is good to stop looking at the wider vista and take note of what is close at hand. It is surprising just how many things you could miss when gazing out across the wondrous open spaces offered by such places as the Blue Mountains!

This area of the world gets both wet and cold and as a result the trees are covered with lichen, both the flat pale green variety and the spidery tangle of strands of what is affectionately called “Old Man's Whiskers” (But I have a tropical plant that has that same name and it drapes down in lush long tangles of soft strands)

f/9  1/50  55mm  ISO 640

Most of the time of our three night stop-over in the mountains the weather was dull and damp but even that gave me a different look at how the mountains are. The spectacular “wow” scenes are in the brilliant sunrises and sunsets but there was no colour for us this trip. However the misty rain gave a rather special look to the jagged tree covered mountains.

f/16  1/60  26mm  ISO640

The thousands of trees smothering the mountains exude eucalyptus oil the warm air and this is what gives the distant hills a blue look – and that is how these mountains were given this collective name “Blue Mountains”

f/10  1.60  18mm  ISO 320

One of the places we visited (we chose only to go to places we had not visited on previous occasions) was Anvil Rock. At the foot of this mighty rock – which was not anvil shaped but did have a big iron anvil set in concrete on the very top – was a fabulous weather worn stone. It was quite large so I guess it was a rock not a stone! I would have loved to have clambered around the other side for a different perspective – but the steep slope stopped me! I did not fancy slipping down the thousand of more feet if I lost my footing!

Another of the interesting places we visited was called a wind eroded cave and with such an unpretentious name, very few people visited it. But it was wonderful!

  f/7.1  1/60  30mm  ISO 320

I must have taken a dozen photos and Colin the same. Its a good job we no longer have to pay to have our photos developed! The cave is really just the face of a huge rocky outcrop that has been weathered into a concave shape so is not really a cave. The face is also carved with millions of mini “caves” of different sizes giving every angle a different look.

We have now left the Blue Mountains and are on our way home. No photos were taken during our travels today, we were too busy enjoying the drive – the GPS took us on a route we would not have chosen if we had to rely on a printed atlas! We drove over 30+km of gravel road. Our car will need a good wash when we get home!

AJ