Walk to Lunch Rock

Friday saw us making a rendezvous with our bushwalking group to hike to Lunch Rock. This was not a challenging walk compared with some of the others, although the terrain was less varied: mostly heathland and scrub until we approached our destination.



All the rock formations in the area were dramatic.






Early morning rain had filled hollows in the rock surface, reminding me of coastal tidepools.



Michael, as usual, had brought along his sketchbook. Just below him, my sister-in-law, Judy, is trying to shelter from the stiff breeze sweeping across the plateau.



Below the plateau, the Wollangambe River had cut a deep gorge through the sandstone cliffs.




On our way back, we passed through a gully where this eucalypt was leaning against the cliff face.


And the first of the winter wattles, Acacia terminalis, the sunshine wattle, was just coming into bloom.

Roof Garden

I've been privileged to see some impressive roof gardens, but this one, which we came across quite by chance a couple of days ago, is unquestionably one of the best. The plants were a mix of edible and ornamental varieties. Note the impressive red-hot poker plant on the right near the peak of the roof.
The walls appear to be mud brick, and the house has a rainwater tank and solar panels, altogether a model of sustainability.
We would like to have gone closer but it also had a protective dog.

Mount Wilson and its attractions

Mount Wilson is a little enclave, tucked away at the end of a narrow, winding road in the Blue Mountains. The "village" consists of a community hall, a bushfire brigade depot, and an attractive old church. There are no shops. A couple of cafés open at the whim of their owners, usually on weekends. But not always.
Those who live at Mt Wilson are a mix of wealthy retirees, artists and writers, weekend cottagers and, above all, gardeners. The mountain is one of the basalt-capped outcrops of this area with rich, fertile soil, and has been attracting people fleeing the humidity of the coast for close to 150 years. Many of the early settlers took advantage of the cool climate to plant English oaks and beeches along with Japanese and American maples among the magnificent tree ferns that grow in profusion there.
As these have matured, the resulting splendid parks and avenues have become a destination for Australians wanting a taste of the autumn colour so absent in the native landscape.
Mothers' Day weekend saw numerous private estates open as a fundraiser for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and I went along to enjoy the vistas and perhaps find some ideas that I could translate to the scale of my modest yard. Saturday's weather was bright and sunny, but by Sunday, clouds had moved in and it was, for the most part, overcast. It cleared somewhat in the afternoon so that I was able to get at least of few shots of sunlight falling through the autumn leaves.

Nooroo was the first property I visited. I've wanted to see it for a long time, but have never been at Mt. Wilson when it was open. It is most famous for its collection of wisteria, so a better time to see it is in spring, but I found its autumn dress very attractive. I particularly appreciated the drifts of white nerines emerging through a carpet of fallen leaves in through the old part of the garden.





The second garden was Bebeah, a 12-acre blend of parkland, formal beds and water features.






Like many of the Mt. Wilson gardens, Bebeah had its share of delightful statuary.




The patina on this sphinx exactly matched the eucalypt behind it.



Yengo sculpture garden was my last stop.







Maples had thrown a dropsheet over the deserted tennis court.



The sculptures are spread throughout the large estate and you come upon them unexpectedly as you round a corner or cross a lawn. The majority are modern but representational bronzes of humans, particularly children, engaged in various activities. I preferred this youth, back turned to passers-by, and found those of birds such as the peacock the most appealing.




However, there was one human figure that I really liked. I almost missed her as she's tucked away in a remote corner where few people go, I suspect. Unlike the others, she's made of wood. Perhaps I identify more with her expression than with the serene, contemplative bronzes.

Catherine Hill Bay

This former mining community on the coast north of Sydney is being threatened by large-scale, unsympathetic development as a result of the mine closing and the owners planning to sell off their prime headland property. We went to see it while it is still untouched.
The cloudy, rainy day hadn't daunted half a dozen surfers in wetsuits on the beach beneath the old pier.

Out at sea, under a stormy sky, freighters rode along the horizon awaiting a berth at the nearby port of Newcastle. It was in this vicinity last year that storms forced one freighter onto a beach where it lay stranded for a couple of weeks, making worldwide pictorial news.

Michael took advantage of a clear spell to do a quick sketch looking along the beach towards the pier.

I strolled along the edge of the beach, where this lovely old sign caught my eye.

And this wattle, just bursting into bloom.

Another Day, Another Bushwalk

It was Michael's birthday on April 4th and so, with a few sunny hours to spare, we decided to investigate a short track featuring three waterfalls, close to the nearby town of Lawson. It led through a shallow valley carved by the stream that fed the aforesaid falls. We walked up and down steps cut into sandstone rocks, and through bushland where the slender, steely trunks of Mountain ash (Eucalyptus oreades) rose out of carpets of ferns into cool, sundappled air. As we walked we could hear the stream running through undergrowth beside us, though we caught only occasional glimpses through gaps in the scrub.

Our path led us across the base of each waterfall in turn, under dark ironstone shelves of rock, gleaming with the constant sluice of water.



We trudged over soft, pale sand washed out to the margins of pools into which the water fell, and negotiated mossy wooden bridges of decaying wood.


Although it didn't offer the dramatic, cliff-edge views that many trails in the Blue Mountains do, it was shorter and less demanding than most of those, pleasant enough for the time we had available.

Easter daisies

One of the curious things about the different hemispheres of the world is that certain events on the calendar, Easter for instance, occur at the same time around the world, but the seasons are reversed. And thus, what northerners call Michaelmas daisies, or fall asters, become Easter daisies here in Australia.
I've been watching the expanding clump on the corner of our house, guessing from the stem and leaf structure that they might be asters, and wondering what colour they were going to be. As it turns out, a lovely pale sky blue. They remind me quite a lot of one I grew in Canada, acquired from Free Spirit Nursery and named 'Poolicht'. Not a pretty name in English, but it translates as "polar light" which is apt and shows more imagination than the names of many cultivars.
My clump is large enough that I will divide it after flowering and put a matching clump at the other end of the front fence. In the meantime, they give me a chance to experiment with the macro function on my new camera.

Newnes river caves

It was a bright, sunny day for our group's hike to the Newnes river caves yesterday. We had been warned that we would have to wade through water, possibly waist-high, and to dress appropriately and bring extra footwear for wearing in the water. Fortunately, the deepest pool came only to mid-thigh so most people were fine in their shorts. I ended up with wet pantlegs, which I preferred to scratched legs from the bushes lining the track. The sun quickly dried me off as we made our way back to our starting point at the top of the plateau.


It was dark and cool at the bottom of the chasm, although not as dark as my photos make it appear. Where sunlight penetrated the gloom, opportunistic seedlings had sprouted.


The spots on the lens are from droplets of water seeping from ledges above us.




Between the pools, the water had to find a path among massive boulders.



Tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica) thrive in the cool, moist conditions at the bottom of the canyon.