‘Blues in the mountains: I can still go for a bushwalk’

It’s hard to get something dramatic out of your mind. Something that impacts on your psyche leaves a lasting image. Thus it is that the bushfire crisis still resonates in our brains. Those areas worst affected struggle to alter those mostly subconscious perceptions that come flooding back whenever such things are mentioned.

Reality however, can be an opposite. Changes can occur that rapidly alter a situation without causing a flicker in our perceptions. People whose livelihoods are affected can end up in a despairing situation not of their own making.

What once was reality may no longer exist but the world generally, via the media, is no longer interested. There’s no drama to witness, no dramatic images, just ‘same as before’, and we’ve all seen that, no need to refresh our memory.

I’m sitting in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, across the road from Cahills Lookout from which the dramatic Narrow Neck is visible for its entire length. Turn a little further west and you gaze over the Megalong Valley, its verdant growth simply dazzling in the sunlight.

Replenished by the summer rains, the earth has found new meaning and, frankly, I’ve never seen it looking better. A storm front threatens even more precipitation as splayed light plays across the canyon. Yet still the tourists are shunning the place.

What effect international viruses may or may not be having is hard to discern as that crisis deepens but there’s a distinct thinning of numbers at key attractions, which has a benign side-effect. It makes it the best time to holiday in one of Australia’s iconic landscapes.

The waterfalls are flowing with vigour, bush flowers are popping up everywhere and animal life is showing its multiple faces once more. Rain plus sun equals abundance. The hordes no longer crowd the famous lookouts, so you can view the spectacle in the comfort of your space.

There’s also cloud around, something photographers can get excited about. Those minute droplets that form a visible mass arrive in all shapes and sizes, ever beckoning the viewer. The coming and going of the sun is something to be plotted as we approach the best part of the year for those memorable times when vibrant oranges and stunning reds dazzle us from above, demanding our attention as they perform in layers in the troposphere.

There’s a magic here that returns for me every time I visit, something that’s been going on for six decades and already this time I’ve been on a walk I never knew was here, cutting through forest and not seeing anyone for nigh on two hours, turning around at Therabulat Lookout, named after a local Aboriginal tribe of yesteryear.

John Britty North is writ large upon this landscape; one of the roads I took to get to the head of the walk is named Essendene after his first family home and not far from where I’m photographing is Nellies Glen, named after his daughter. North was the main man responsible for the early mining ventures (think Scenic Railway) and promotion of the area.

The area I walk was untouched by the fires and the decorticating bark on the eucalyptus looks like pleated skirts, while skinks scurry hither and thither through the layers of fallen bark. Some yellow-tailed black cockatoos squawk across the trail, eyeing me off with suspicion as I pass by while a gurgling stream provides background music.

It’s the sort of tune I want to hear and I know my soul will be calmer for the experience tonight.

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