Blue Mountains National Park

Stand still at the edge of the cliff and breathe in. The air is cool, with a sharp, clean scent of eucalyptus. Below you, the valley falls away into a sea of treetops. And over everything hangs a soft blue haze, as if someone has painted the distance with watercolour. Somewhere down in the forest a bird calls, then another answers. Welcome to Blue Mountains National Park, a short journey west of Sydney, in New South Wales.

That blue colour is not a trick of the eye. It comes from the forest itself. Eucalyptus trees release tiny droplets of oil into the warm air. Those droplets mix with dust and water vapour, and they scatter sunlight in a way that favours blue light. On a hot, still day the effect is strongest. The ridges fade into deeper and deeper shades of blue, layer behind layer, until they meet the sky.

Here is the first surprise. These are not really mountains at all. What you see is a huge sandstone plateau, a raised table of rock. Over millions of years, rivers and streams cut down into it. They carved deep valleys and gorges with sheer walls. So when you look out, you are not looking up at peaks. You are standing on top of the old surface and looking down into the places where water has eaten the land away.

Look closely at the cliff faces. The sandstone shows bands of colour, from pale cream to orange, rust and deep brown. Iron in the rock stains the stone as it weathers. In the afternoon, low sunlight turns these walls warm and golden. Beneath the cliffs, steep slopes of broken rock run down into thick forest. Waterfalls drop from the edges here and there, thin white ribbons that often turn to mist before they reach the bottom.

Long before any map was drawn, this country was home to Aboriginal peoples, including the Darug and Gundungurra. They are the traditional custodians of this land, and their connection to it continues today. Paths, campsites, rock art and stories across the region carry traces of that deep history. Many visitors arrive thinking of the park as wild and empty. In fact, it is a landscape that people have known, named and cared for over a very long span of time.

The most famous view in the park is probably the Three Sisters, at Echo Point in Katoomba. Three tall pillars of sandstone stand side by side above the Jamison Valley. Legend has it that three sisters were turned to stone to protect them, and could never be changed back. Be aware that versions of this story differ, and some historians believe the popular telling took its modern shape quite recently. The rock itself, though, is very real, and very old.

For European settlers, these cliffs were a wall. In the early years of the Sydney colony, people struggled to find a way west through the maze of gorges. In 1813, an expedition led by Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth found a route by following the ridges instead of the valleys. Their crossing opened the way to the inland plains. Many of the towns along the highway today carry those three surnames.

Later, in the nineteenth century, a railway climbed up onto the plateau. Towns grew along the line, and the mountains became a place to escape the heat of Sydney. Guesthouses, lookouts and walking tracks followed. Some of the stone steps and paths you may walk on were cut by hand generations ago. The land itself was protected as a national park in 1959, and over time its boundaries have grown much larger.

In 2000, the park became part of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. This is a group of linked parks and reserves that together cover a vast sweep of country. The listing recognises above all the eucalypts. This region holds dozens of different eucalypt species, from tall straight trees in the sheltered valleys to twisted, low trees on exposed ridges. In a sense, the whole area is a living record of how these trees adapted to an old, dry continent.

Here is the second surprise. In 1994, in a remote gorge in nearby Wollemi National Park, also part of this World Heritage Area, a park officer found a tree that scientists had only known from fossils. It was named the Wollemi pine. Its exact wild location is still kept secret to protect it. You will not see the wild trees here, but the story shows how much these deep, hard-to-reach valleys can still hide.

Now listen. If you walk down into the moist forest below the cliffs, you may hear an extraordinary voice. The superb lyrebird is a ground-dwelling bird that copies other sounds around it. It can imitate the calls of many other birds, one after another, with remarkable accuracy. You might hear what sounds like a whole choir of species, and it is only one bird. Keep an eye on the forest floor for a brown shape scratching through the leaves.

Fire is also part of this place. Eucalypt forests are shaped by it, and many plants here recover after burning. Some trees push out new green shoots straight from their blackened trunks. In the Black Summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020, large areas of the World Heritage Area burned. As you walk, you may still notice dark bark, open patches, and bright fresh growth side by side. It is a quiet reminder that this landscape is always changing.

Before you leave, take one more slow look across the valley. Notice how the near ridges are green, and how each ridge behind them turns a little more blue. Listen for the wind moving through the treetops far below, and for the drip of water from the cliff. Feel the sandstone under your hand, slightly rough, slightly warm. As you walk back from the edge, the haze will stay behind you, still holding the valley in its soft blue light.