The Blue Mountains
Not so much blue as melancholy.
March 1999

For a long time after I'd taken these shots, I just dumped the images on the site, and then eventually slapped all of them on one page, to be formatted and have text added later. I really can't put this off any longer, given it was 8 months ago (at time of writing) and I've never actually returned and cleared them up. So here goes...

It was Easter and we were bored. Tim had gone off to Canberra to visit friends of hers, so Sarah, Lucy, a friend of Lucy's called Niall, and I decided to go for a bit of an adventure in the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains are located fairly close to Sydney to the west, and are slightly inaccurately named, to be honest. There aren't really any mountains as such, rather a number of cliff-edged plateau's and deep forested valleys, in a wide line north to south past Sydney.

The "blue" part of the name comes from the blue haze visible over the valleys and rifts caused by oil in the air from eucalyptus trees, which are both home and lunch to Australia's famous Koalas.

I should point out that despite wandering through various forests for most of the three days I was there, I didn't see a single one of the stupid little furry cretins, and began to suspect they were merely a creation of the Australian Tourist Board. I have seen them since, but not particularly close, so I still reckon they're an Animatronic which has Jim Henson Associates© stamped somewhere on their little furry hides. I'm not falling for any of it...

Anyway the first stop-off point for the weekend was The Three Sisters. I actually revisited this area much later with my American friend Liz (see Return To The Blue Mountains), but my first attempt to view them was somewhat unspectacular.

In a word - fog. We couldn't see a damn thing. I have normal (non-digital) photographs of the four of us standing on the nearby viewing platform in front of a wall of white, but thankfully (from your point of view) I didn't bother taking any here...

From the non-event of The Three Sisters, we all bundled back into the tour van and headed off to where we were supposed to be camping. On the way the driver, Nigel, did the usual tour guide banter, and I remember him remarking as we turned off the road onto a dirt track that the pub on the corner was effectively "our local" for the weekend. As we continued on down the track we thought "Great! Camping, fresh air and a pub in walkable distance. Result!".

After another 5 minutes of driving through scrub and bush, we thought "Hmmm. Oh well, a nice walk on the way to the pub is okay I guess".

Another 5 odd minutes of bouncing about on the track; "Damn that's going to be a fair trek to the pub..."

By the time we eventually arrived at the campsite in the middle of nowhere no one had any intention of even attempting to go for a drink. We felt we should be able to wander over the hillside and see Ayers Rock, we'd gone so far...

The actual physical camping for the weekend was a fairly interesting affair given we had the four of us jammed in a two or possibly three man tent, so things got a bit cosy. The food was good though, with enough unhealthy grease to keep you going, without actually verging on instant cholesterol death.

Much of the weekend was spent doing an awful lot of walking, which given my beer and junk food lifestyle, was a bit hard. During the various breaks we took to allow several of us to stop wheezing, I experimented with taking some pictures of the forest in 3D, which can be seen here.

Level your head with the screen, defocus your eyes (e.g. look at the wall behind your monitor) so that you get four images in total, then refocus slightly so that the two middle images overlap. You should now get a 3D effect with the trees in the foreground standing out from the background.

It does work, but it takes a bit of practice.

Looking back at these photos now, identifying particular areas of the Blue Mountains is practically impossible, although one of the walks (possibly on the Saturday afternoon) was particularly memorable due to the swimming.

Nigel had mentioned something about the possibility to get wet, so we should bring our swimming stuff, but I thought he just meant we'd be crossing rivers or something, so I didn't bother. As it turned out, at the end of the walk there was a rather nice pool which a number of our group decided to go swimming in. Sarah tried to get me to go in as well, but given I had no swimming stuff and no towel (and the water was bloody freezing) I resisted.

To their credit, Sarah, Lucy and Niall all went in for a swim about, steadfastly maintaining that it was quite refreshing, whilst I remained on shore taking photos. I still maintain I got the best end of the deal.

What was not quite so smart though was my decision to have a go at horse riding. In films like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" they make it look so damn easy, effortlessly galloping about all over the place with ease. I discovered the reality is rather different.

I used to ride a motorbike, so stupidly thought "Hey you sit on it, you balance, this can't be that hard...".

Motorbikes have suspension. Horses don't. Motorbikes have brakes. Horses don't. And most importantly of all, motorbikes do not have a mind of their own, which a blasted horse regrettably does.

Despite it's benign appearance in these photos, the horse I was given did not overly care about where I wished it to go. It ran off through the woods with me helplessly yanking on the reigns and yelling "Woah!". It stopped to eat a small tree. It stopped in the middle of the road to crap. It seemed impervious to my insistent attempts to get it to turn to where I wanted it to go. After a number of minutes of trying to impose my will on the damn thing, by kicking, yanking, and occasional bouts of yelling at it, I gave up and let the stubborn creature do what it wanted, which thankfully was to go home.

A few minutes after the rest of the group had moseyed back to the corral, to go all cowboy for a moment, I bobbled my way precariously around the corner trying to look like I knew what I had been doing all along.

I still wished I'd been allowed to wear my cheesy Kangaroo skin hat (you can just about make it out in the photo of the group standing beneath a waterfall further up the page), rather than the "Pony Club" safety helmet I was made to. Actually though, given my confidence at staying on the thing, it was probably for the best that I didn't...

On the last day we returned back to The Three Sisters to see if the view was any better, and this time our luck was in. Despite the day starting with a torrential downpour that soaked all our stuff and made packing up a bit miserable it cleared up later on and by the time we arrived at the viewing area it was pretty clear.

Okay, given the build up it had received I was not exactly blown away by the Three Sisters, but it was still nice to actually see them. They're very... um... rocky. I was getting a bit jaded by this point.

However, at least we got to see some kangaroos up close on the way home. I forget the actual name of the place where we stopped off, but the kangaroos were tame enough that you could get fairly close for photos.

You may have noticed, if either you know me or if you've already visited various of the other pages, that I look a bit different in all these shots, the one below and to the right being an ideal example. At the time of the trip, I had just shaved off my usually perennial facial fuzz. Sarah had been asking what I looked like without it, so I shaved it off.

The answer is I look about 14, so I promptly grew it back. I've had the beard for the best part of seven or eight years, but I shave it off every so often just for a change. I usually just grow it straight back though, usually at requests from female friends. The general consensus is that I look better with the goatee, although my mother still hates it. The fact that my brother recently decided to grow one should really make her happy...

And that's about it for the Blue Mountains. At least for now. The next clump of photo's deal with my trip to Canberra , where I went with Tim, Mike and Preston. I wasn't impressed, as you'll find out...

© Barny Russell 2005