Blue Mountains

Tue, Dec 1, 2009

This morning we checked out of the lovely AYH hostel in Katoomba. It was a very cool building, originally built as a guesthouse, with nice Art Deco touches throughout. It was really big, with lots of areas in which to congregate and a nice big kitchen. One of the great things about this hostel is the free food bin for dry goods and the free food shelf in the fridge. We scored some really good stuff, like cooking oil, which we then left behind for the next person. One of the not so nice things about youth hostel kitchens, though, is that the people using them have varying degrees of cleanliness. It didn’t take long to realize that it’s probably a good idea to wash your dishes BEFORE and after using them.

Yesterday morning we went poking around the area. Drove out to Sublime Point which overlooks the valley and as we stood there, I could hear tinkling coming across the valley. It sounded like sleigh bells and I joked that Santa was on his way. I was trying to puzzle out what it was and trying to describe the sound to Jeff who couldn’t hear it when another couple came walking out to the point and told us it was the sound of the bellbirds - hundreds of them singing in the valley below. Each individual bird makes a sound like someone striking a pipe with a piece of metal - a clear, sharp ting. It’s an unmistakable sound once you know what it is. But when you get hundreds, probably thousands, of them singing at once, it creates that continuous sleigh bell sound. Amazing.

We found some nice hikes that took us to other lookout points and past waterfalls, etc, eventually wrapping up the day by watching the sunset at Echo Point. From there you can look out over the valley, which is absolutely blanketed in eucalyptus trees. It used to be thought it was the trees that give the area its distinctive blue haze, but since then it has been decided that it has to do with the angle of the sun hitting the various particulates in the air, etc etc. The tree explanation is more fun I think.

Speaking of trees, it is the season for the eucalyptus to shed their bark. Every year they grow a new coat of bark which is then shed in the spring. The tops and much of the trunks are perfectly bare of bark and are smooth and pure white. Down at their bases you can see piles of bark, some of it shed in little bits and pieces, and some of it shed in great long strips, like a peeled carrot. The trees themselves have a stately elegance to them in their slender, pale height with their leaves right up at the very top reaching toward the sun. They look like something straight out of Tolkein’s own illustrations for The Hobbit or like something you would see in the John Tompkins piano lesson books (remember those?). And the smell is incredible. Eucalyptus in the air… nature’s aromatherapy.