Returning Home

It has been many years since I dragged the camera out during a visit home to the Blue Mountains. So often our time is so scarce, flitting from one family to another for the catch-up lunch with the parents or afternoon tea with the grandparents that when we do get a moment to ourselves we just want to sit and, well, do nothing.

So it was a welcome change when we actually had the time to go for a walk out along the plateau from Mum and Dad's house. This was my playground growing up; the pine forest supplied us with trees to fell to build cubby houses and the native forest beyond that was our first introduction to the way the native world worked.

As a kid you can never truly appreciate the beauty or one's fortune of living in a place like I did. I honestly couldn't tell you how many times I've sat at the spot where the photo below was taken, but it would number in the hundreds and it has only been in the last few years that it has dawned upon me just how lucky we were to grow up with this as our back yard...

The view looking East toward Katoomba from Radiata Plateau. The bank of low cloud is the approaching sea breeze and signals the approach of the classic mountain weather of mist, drizzle and cold weather.

Boar's Head Rock; not the best angle to see the Boar's
head, but it does show the classic late afternoon sun on
those wonderful cliffs. Mt Solitary, having already succumbed
to the sea-breeze, looms out of the mirky background

A road into the wilderness. The fire-trail over Narrow Neck
is the first leg of many a trip into the Wild Dog Mountains
wilderness area. In the full size print you can just make out
the lone figure of a hiker heading up the trail.