beyond the hill lies china

Far in the distance from the top balcony here, we can occasionally see the mountains. For the last few days they have been covered with haze, but today they were fairly clear although the day itself is hot and muggy.

I thought they looked like part of the Blue Mountains, but was puzzled by the orientation. I downloaded an update of Google Earth and got rid of my old installation which did not work properly. Searching on this address, I aligned things and went from there. West, west and more west. Sure enough, way down in the mountains at the back of the Warragamba Dam but actually on the road on the ridge above. Megalong Valley is on other side of the ridge.

These photos are heavily cropped versions of the originals which were taken using the maximum optical zoom (10x) on my camera. The zoom and haze have distorted the picture.

The title? "Beyond the hills lies China" was a saying from convict days here. The mountains are quite close to the coast, only about 80 km from Sydney. Early convicts believed that freedom could be found on the other side of them.

Unfortunately their attempts to escape usually failed. These mountains are not true mountains and in this ancient land are not particularly high as mountains are counted elsewhere. The highest on the road over is just over 4,000 feet and the highway goes up a bit more on the road to Bathurst at Mt Lambie, although that is part of the Great Dividing Range, not the Blue Mountains. The Blue mountains are actually a large plateau pushes up from the seabed. Over time rifts and valleys have appeared. It was these which stopped the crossing of the mountains from the very early days of the colony. The successful way was to climb to the top at the beginning and to stay on ridges, winding across. To enter a valley and hope to find a way through was doomed to failure. A traveller on the valley floor was soon stopped by immense, perpendicular, sandstone cliffs, and no escape through a gorge to the next valley.

During WWII, my dad, who came from the Mountains, was an officer in Army Intelligence. He used to tell us of poring over Army Ordnance maps of the area for weeks to try to find a possible way over for a quick road to be built by the Army if the roads were bombed. He decide the current routes and one to the far south were the only possible ways, particularly for something quick.

Another photo just because I can. Again it's hazy but is in the other direction from here. This looks south to the Royal National Park and Bundeena. There is a smudge of something lighter. That's actually some sandstone cliffs.

All three pictures can be enlarged by clicking. The buildings in the first two are part of the industrial and office estate near Macquarie Uni.

Some hours later... another photo to round off the day. Summer sunset, just before 8:30 pm. It's been hot today and quite muggy too. Very hot in the western suburbs. The sky reflects the heat haze, although tomorrow is forecast as cooler. The sky was beautiful as I glanced out of the window, so I grabbed my camera from the wardrobe, hoping it would remain for just a bit longer. The clouds looked like mother of pearl shell and the sun was crimson silhouetting the gum tree it shone through. I managed three quick photos and then it all changed.