Blue Haze of the Gumtree Hills

 

The fairy tale that is the Blue Mountains, starts to the west of the big sprawling city of Sydney, visible from any elevated vantage point of the city, beckoning the artist inside you to leave the humdrum of the cityscape and walk into the blue, dreamy, misty haze.

Many critics may scoff that these are no mountains, just a lofty sandstone ridge – but in the initial years of the colony, this ridge was so dense, the terrain so difficult that it took decades to find a way through the hills, justifying perhaps the moniker of the Mountains. Having visited other towering mountain ranges elsewhere, initially even I was a critic but I remember the day my walls of cynicism faded away for good. Walking close to one of the many bejewelled townships (Leura), I found cool shade on a hot summer day under the red sparkling blooms of a rhododendron tree. Walking farther, I found a small brook, gurgling meditatively, cascading in wanton joy, while gum trees in the glade provided a wonderful sanctuary. Far away towards the horizon, the piebald hills of red sandstone and green eucalypti, created a rhapsody with the flattening valleys covered in jade forests, while white shiny specks of a flitting cockatoo flock made me feel as if the forest below was alive, crackling, shimmering, cascading through the white shimmer of the crackle of cockatoos. Once nature seeped into the emptiness of my existence, all I felt was peace, pensive peace. (Perhaps this is what the sage Japanese recognise as forest-bathing, shinrin-yoku). In that brimming sense of peacefulness, I asked myself what more could one long for.

Yes, these humble hills could not compare with the shimmering glaciers of the Himalaya or the Alps, but instead of being unattainable, insurmountable, admired only from afar in unrequited love, the Blue Mountains seemed close, approachable, opening its heart and soul to any traveller who could traverse a little ascent up from the neighbouring thoroughfares of the city. They were more like a close friend, in whose house you were welcome anytime to discuss anything, creating memories for life, in stark contrast to that unreachable crush who granted but a handful of austere, sidelong glances.

I smiled and, in that moment, the Blue Mountains became a destination like no other in my sojourns from Sydney. In the pages of my wayfaring diaries, the Blue Mountains joined the greens of the Sahyadris, the torrents of the Khasi hills, and the sparseness of the Calanques, all justifying that, great things often came in small packages - in this case, wrapped in green gumtrees, ribboned with a blue misty haze.

I was not the only dreamer who had stumbled on newfound ikigai in the hills – these hills are the muse to countless painters, poets and philosophers, the inspiration for many ramblers, roamers and writers and the destination for many drifters, day-trippers and dreamers – it is not for nothing that the Blue Mountains National Park is the most visited National Park in the country. Less than 50 km from Sydney, jutting up from Penrith and Richmond, the Blue Mountains begin on two very different roads, taking travellers to countless parks, gardens, heritage-rich houses, museums, waterfalls, trails and so much more. Old collieries have been converted to amusement train parks, refineries whisper in ghost towns taken back by nature, steam engines chug over century old zig-zag rails, glow-worms shimmer in old tunnels, endless trails scurry in the world’s second largest canyon, Aboriginal song-lines beckon you from here all the way to the desert sands in the heart of the country, limestone caves formed during the ancient Silurian Age abound with primeval life, dinosaur trees hide away in secret valleys – the Blue Mountains are these, and so much more. So much that the Greater Blue Mountains Area, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000. So much that it needs seven National Parks (Blue Mountains, Wollemi, Yengo, Nattai, Kanangra-Boyd, Thirlmere Lakes, Gardens of Stone) and a conservation reserve (Jenolan Caves Karst Reserve) to contain itself.

I have explored just a fraction of these miles of wonder, and have I been amazed –dancing like a dervish under the slow-motion of sleet and snow in these mountains, smelling in intoxication the rows of incandescent blooms waking in spring’s joyful abundance, inundating in the pensive colours of autumn’s yellowed gardens, walking under cataracts reincarnated in the rains – as much as having seen these same gum trees blaze in summer’s infernal bushfires (making me look back and wonder for days if the universe even bothers distinguishing between creation and destruction). In every season, in every town, I have been mesmerised, not just by nature but by man’s works as well – indigenous, colonists, emancipists and new age travellers, who all have contributed to make this world what it is today. And everytime I have wandered off, I have never returned empty-handed – like a wishing tree, the Mountains have given, bountifully, as if rewarding any and every traveller for making that attempt to cross the Hawkesbury and climb onto the sandstone tablelands. In that outburst of inspiration I have composed many a poetry, prose, and painting, some of which have been collated in this anthology dedicated to the Blue Mountains.

You can travel a lot, yet there will be so much more in those enchanting hills - that the westward ridge beckons with pensive eyes every time you look up from Sydney’s skyscrapers away from the Pacific. In that moment of longing and enchantment, millions of years come alive in that fortified wall, as if longing you to sip one more cup of wonder, taste one more iota of infinity.

And the tireless heart yearns to set out once again, up the hills, up the sandstone ridge, into the blue haze of the gumtree hills…

 

1^st May’2024

(Above lines form the introduction to my upcoming anthology, Blue Haze of the Gumtree Hills, watch this space for more)

Cover Image: Govett's Leap, Blackheath; Author's archives