Blue Mountains

The afternoon was the easy version, and I’m not pretending otherwise: Katoomba, a cable car past the cliffs, a boardwalk through tree ferns and tall eucalyptus. Not a hike. But I came to see the mountains, and the mountains showed up.

The Three Sisters stood exactly where every postcard promised: three sandstone towers above the Jamison Valley. There is a legend about three sisters turned to stone; geologists tell a story about wind and rain. I like that both stories need a very long time. Further along, Katoomba Falls came down an orange wall in thin white threads.

August in Australia is winter: cold mornings and a sky so clear it looks edited. I had come all this way and, naturally, went straight to the mountains — the Blue Mountains, a couple of hours west of Sydney.

The name comes from the haze. The eucalyptus forests release a fine mist of oil that scatters the light, so from any distance the whole range turns blue. Late that morning the trail ended on a bare sandstone ledge hanging over a valley hundreds of metres deep. I sat at the edge with my legs stretched out on the warm rock — the most relaxed I have ever been above a drop like that.

This land has been Country for the Darug and Gundungurra peoples for tens of thousands of years. Sitting up there you understand how a landscape can be a story rather than a view.