To the mountains Blue

 We headed to the dainty dales

Of the distant mountains Blue,

To tiny towns, their gardens grand

To catch late Autumn’s hue

 

Mount Wilson, Tomah, Banks and more

Bell’s line of Road beckoned,

Their trees now singing Autumn’s song

Turning red and blonde

 

They say, over a hundred years before

The settlers longed for home,

They planted leaves of memory

In these lands they were to roam

 

And hence grew English chestnut, oak

The maple, birch and elm

Deciduous trees defying what

The native gum trees claim

 

And every autumn, the exiled trees

Remember home and sigh,

Their leaves turn orange, yellow, red

To shed and say goodbye

 

Do they still remember home

In this evergreen southern land?

It is a sigh we passers-by

Will perhaps not understand

 

 

The most that we can do is then,

As Autumn pilgrims lone

Exalt how, in weak this soil

They have risen large and grown

 

And whisper to each fallen leaf

That through their winter war,

Newfound homes were set right here

For those who came this far

 

The winds will blow, the leaves will fly

The valleys will echo

Another Spring will come one day

New shoots will start to grow…

 

04^th June, 2023

 

The Blue Mountains near Sydney are traversed by only two roads – one made famous by early explorers Wentworth, Lawson and Blaxland in 1813, the other being Bells Line of Road, marked ten years later by Archibald Bell in 1823. It is on the latter that English settlers from Sydney and Newcastle developed huge English gardens towards the end of the 19^th century and planted English deciduous trees in fond memory of home. Over 150 years later, these gardens have luckily continued to grow and have been cared by successive generations, with little change to their original looks (though plants from the Himalaya and other Asian highlands were brought in later decades to thrive in this cool mountainous clime near the ever-growing hub of Sydney).

 Today these sprawling gardens are a wonder to behold throughout the year, but more so in the paroxysms of Autumn, when thousands flock to the enthralling colours of these gardens, decked with deciduous immigrants in stark contrast to the forest of evergreen eucalypts that surround them in the Blue Mountains.

Cover image: Breenhold Gardens, Mt. Wilson