The Grand Canyon at Blackheath, Blue Mountains NP
Where do I go for rest and renewal? For peace and inspiration? To discover, yet again, that feeling of awe and wonder and belonging that is so easily lost in the bustle of modern life? To my own backyard - my beautiful Blue Mountains where a lifetime is not enough to explore the many and varied sites, especially as each time an area is revisited, something new is discovered.
I love the awesome sheer cliffs with their age-old wisdom as they preside over green valleys below:- their colours in all shades of cream, yellow, orange, red and grey and everything in between, most ending in gentle scree slopes built up over millions of years of erosion. I love the many weird and wonderful shapes of the pagoda rocks which appear suddenly here and there like long-forgotten temples or lost cities. Then there are the bands of ironstone twisted into the most incredible ways. And the caves, crevices and overhangs where surely fairies and other nature spirits must reside. Above all these are the gentle ridges and flat tops which are all that remain of a once-huge plateau - or was it a long-gone seabed or lake?
Let me tell you about the creeks and waterfalls. There are the ones that tumble down playfully from rock to rock, pool to pool to suddenly plunge over a cliff down a sheer rock face way down to the valley below in one long drop or in a series of falls, as if to prolong the bliss of freedom for a short time, before continuing on their restricted, restless way. Yet others hide themselves shyly in ferny, mossy, cool corners where they fall into crystal clear pools to play with the fairy folk for a while before continuing on their way to join a river and eventually the ocean. Sometimes they, laughingly, cascade from one series of rock terraces to the next, staying but a moment to flirt and tease with wet spray flying, before rushing on and ever down. However, the most daring and exciting are those that disappear down narrow, deep canyons - some of them so dark and narrow that even ferns can't grow on their fantastically sculptured walls. Here I can really feel the heart of the earth and merge with its ageless beauty.