Saturday, May 7, 2011

A Beautiful Day In The Mountains

I must warn you that this is a picture heavy post. I don't have any stitching to show today as I haven't been doing much lately, so I thought that I would show you where I live. All photos are clickable and will enlarge to see better.

Today was such a beautiful sunny day in The Blue Mountains. The sun was shining (instead of raining), the birds were singing and I went for a walk down to Echo Point in Katoomba. Echo Point is always busy with tourists who come up either for a few days holiday or just for the day. Katoomba is about 2 hours drive from Sydney. It is a place that always has a lot of tourist buses. People from all over the world are always coming here. It is a very interesting place to just sit sometimes and do some "people watching".

Above is the famous Three Sisters. The Three Sisters have a very interesting story:-

The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, 'Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo' lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe.

These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry.

The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters causing a major tribal battle.

As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come.

They are 922, 918 and 906 metres tall, respectively. That's over 3000 feet above sea level! The Nepean isthe area below the Mountains.

In case you were wondering why The Blue Mountains are blue, it is because it is densely populated by oil bearing Eucalyptus trees. The atmosphere is filled with finely dispersed droplets of oil, which, in combination with dust particles and water vapour, scatter short-wave length rays of light which are predominantly blue in colour.

This is the new platform that was built a few years ago for easy access to viewing this truly beautiful place.

I don't know if you can see in this photo a rocky formation that is called The Ruin Castle.

The Valley where the Three Sisters and the above photos is called The Jamieson Valley on the other side of the this photo is Megalong Valley.


If you are lucky enough when you go to Echo Point sometimes there is this lovely young Aboriginal man playing the Didgeridoo. It is a magical experience to hear this beautiful instrument being played down here. By the way he is in full Aboriginal garb. Bit chilly though on a cool day.

This is a very special monument that was erected to remember the Convict Labour who built the road through the Mountains. If they worked the way the 2 men in the front worked it would have been very hard as they are wearing chains. There are 2 Convicts, 1 Soldier and 2 Aboriginal onlookers. They built the road from Sydney to Bathurst.
All the trees in the Mountains are showing their Autumn colours. It is really pretty here at the moment.
The building ahead is part of Lilianfels Hotel, a 5 star hotel. This is the actual Lilianfels which was the home of Sir Frederick Darley who was Chief Justice and Lieutenant-Governor. The house was built in 1889. It is now a Restaurant.
I hope you enjoyed seeing photos of this truly beautiful place. This is just one small piece of it. All the towns that form The Blue Mountains are surrounded by views such as this. Each one is beautiful in its own way.

Thank you for dropping by. I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and Happy Mother's Day. I hope this day will be special for you.

11 comments:

Margaret said...

You really do live in a gorgeous place, Sandra. I loved reading about the story behind the 3 sisters. And everything else too. That's a nice viewing platform they built too. Hope you have a great Mother's Day. Is it Mother's Day in Australia too?

merumo said...

Beautiful place! I've been to quite few places in Australia while being a flihght attendant as our layover used to be 5-7 days in Sydney. I guess I better get out and go somewhere like that to get a fresh air, rather than sitting on the couch all day long with stitching?

Nancy said...

Beautiful pictures! You do live in a beautiful area. Funny to think that it is fall where you live and we are enjoying spring where I live. We have the Blue Ridge Mountains in the state where I live, so named because they always have a blue haze above them. Interesting that you have Blue Mountains too!

marly said...

Magnificent. Magnificent! My SIL went to Australia before she died - said there was nothing like it on earth.

Jennifer Ann Fox said...

What gorgeous views of the mountains!

Have a great day!

Jennifer
Feathers in the Nest

Kathy A. said...

Oh how very beautiful. I have never been to Australia and I can see it is quite stunning. Thank you for sharing some of the local history. Very interesting. Happy Mother's Day

Laurie in Iowa said...

Sandra, I enjoyed your pics and the stories you've shared. Thanks so much for sharing with us. You live in a beautiful place.

Brigitte said...

What a terrific trip to the mountains this was! Thanks so much for sharing all these wonderful pictures.

Siobhán said...

I loved seeing your photos, Sandra! It's always fun to see a glimpse into where people live. What a gorgeous place! I hope you enjoyed your Mother's Day!

Gabi said...

OH - my - gosh....you're living in Katoomba!!! I LOVE that little city. Although I have rather painful memories of the 3 sisters. I went down all those steps and that was the last thing I did for 2 straight days....lol. The 3 sisters stand for me for severe muscle ache...lol. I hadn't done any hiking by then for couple of weeks, and these steps were my first reintroduction to it...lol.

I really love Katoomba. It's so beautiful there. I want to visit it again. But do you know what annoys me the most of my visit there? That I didn't realize by then that it's the same town where "The Stitching Post" is located. I could still hit my head for that.

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So beautiful places and all of these pictures are gorgeous. I really like these places.