Toscana del sud

A little after dawn. Riding in a car with my father. I'm entranced by the topography — angular, fissured hills; sere grassland with stands of spindly eucalypts. Barbed wire five-strand fences, old, silver-greyed strainer posts, ragged split timber fenceposts. A two-lane bitumen road running along the flats, the hills a few hundred metres beyond the fence line. But it's the shape of the hills that holds me. The endlessly varying but eternally uniform shape of those hills. As a small boy, say five or six, I don't have the language to describe them with any precision. But the shapes reach out, beguile, capture my imagination. I can see myself walking across the concavity of the river flats, to foothills, then scrambling up a gully to the ridge line, the gully split by smaller and smaller gullies; the low ridges giving way to higher and higher summits. Not huge mountains, but gentle, human-sized hills — the size where you could climb to the top in an hour, or less.

Not huge mountain ranges, for this is the Central West of NSW. If there is a part of Australia that feels like my bit of country, it's here. I'm a city boy — Sydney, born and bred, but the Central West is something special in my interior landscape. It was a place I learnt about early. My father was born in Wellington, at the northwestern end of the Central West, schooled in its heartland at Orange, then lived in Canowindra. That's where I first came to know the region, on visits to my grandmother, my Nanny, Dorry. They were the only holidays we ever had as kids. 

My Nanny, Dorry, and my father, at his graduation

Canowindra was a long way away, a drive to a place that was a different world from my home in the Inner West of Sydney. A place of climatic extremes — dry heatwave summers, when I spent all day at the swimming pool with my cousins, and cold, cold winters, when Nanny would — wonder of wonders — light a fire in the living room. A land of curiosities — two stoves in the kitchen: a wood stove that also kept the room cosy in winter; and an electric stove, for summer, to avoid heating the house up any more than it already was. A chip heater in the bathroom, that, along with drought, meant lukewarm baths in a few inches of water. All the wood burning gave the house a distinctive, smoky smell — not strong, but rich and warm, a dark brown smell. Like tobacco, and the leather of my grandfather's collar box, that sat on Dad's bedroom dresser, as it now sits on mine.

Other curios and oddities abounded. Nanny lived in a freestanding house — a wonder to a child who'd only ever lived in a small city flat. It had timber verandas on several sides, which meant you heard visitors long before they arrived at the door. There was an old garage, but no car — she didn't drive, and had been widowed for as long as I knew her. The garage was a magnet. Dark, dusty, with benches and cupboards full of potentially interesting things — tools, jars of nuts and bolts; it drew me, until Nanny saw a snake in there, and I was banned. Two big water tanks up on high stands; I learnt to knock the rings to see how deep the water was.

Further down the backyard was a corrugated iron dunny, which stunk, and resulted in a reluctance to go to the toilet. Next to it was a chopping block, where she split timber for the stove and chip heater. The washing line was up on clothes props — a Hill's Hoist was nowhere to be found in those days. Beyond the washing lines was a low fence, separating the grassed area from a rougher weed-strewn patch down the back, intended as a vegetable patch. I remember a photo of my father in his twenties, standing there, weedy rough ground then as well, holding up two chooks by their legs. I never learnt the fate of the chooks, but have always assumed they were dinner.

 It's not for decades after that early morning drive that I learn that the landscapes I see are fractal geometry — they exhibit repeating patterns that display at every scale. It's also later, as a geology student, that I gain the language to describe the topography that had held me. It's called a mature landscape, in the theoretical cycle of landscape evolution developed by geographers like William Morris Davis.

William Morris  Davis' model of landscape evolution

I realise that a trip from Sydney to the Central West is a trip through Davis' landscape model. The flattish Cumberland Plain of western Sydney could be the "Old" stage, as is the landscape beyond Parkes or around Hay, all big plains with minor residual ridges of harder rock. The Cumberland Plain is followed on the drive by the uplifted plateaux cut by box canyons of the Blue Mountains. They look like Davis' "Youthful" stage, but I quickly realise the impact of geological history here. They are actually a "Rejuvenated" stage, where uplift of the plateau at the Lapstone Monocline has kicked off the Davisian cycle again. But it's the Central West — part of the Western Slopes topographic division of NSW, that grabs me. And so perfectly exemplifies Davis' Mature stage of topography. 

That monotonically repeating landscape — all fractal slopes with nary a flat spot — is very appealing. On a world stage, the landscapes that capture popular imagination often resemble this. The lands of central Italy — Tuscany and Umbria, for instance; The Lakes District and the Cotswolds; or Appalachia (Davis was a Philadelphian, and Appalachian geology informed much of his thinking). Tuscany and Umbria are popular, I feel, not just because of their abundance of Mediaeval hill towns, good vineyards, and annoying renovating authors. The hills of central Italy are very similar in form to those of the Central West.

Tuscany

The Central West

The uplifted, eroded plateau — think of the Blue Mountains, or the Colorado Plateau cut by the Grand Canyon — is spectacular. But also intimidating. It overwhelms the individual; inducing awe, certainly, but not necessarily a sense of comfort or ease.

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, Thomas Moran, 1904.
A spectacular but intimidating landscape

 Mature landscapes like the Central West, or Tuscany, have a human scale and a more intimate feel. They are, I think, immediately appealing. I can immediately imagine myself in them, and fit them out with people and culture — roads, farms, villages, pasture, crop lands, railways and canals — that are unthinkable in a youthful and cliff-bound landscape. Whilst many people love the Blue Mountains, and, indeed, live there, for me they have always been the bit you have to drive through to get to the Central West.

My connections are not just childhood ones. As a geologist I've worked there a bit. For students in Sydney, it draws. Sydney has some fascinating geology, but it's all of a type, and lacks the diversity, the exposure to a wide variety of rocks in a small area. So, for me, the landscape and the memories make me want to say that the Central West is my patch.

This simple statement can be controversial amongst some circles in Australia. It's clear that Aboriginal Australians have a long connection to country. Over 40,000 years of it. It's a spiritual and custodial link. The Aboriginal people of what we now call the Central West are called the Wiradjuri. This is their country. They are the people of the goanna totem. They are the largest Aboriginal group in NSW, and Wiradjuri country is huge — ranging from the change from woodlands to open grassland in the east — approximately the alignment of the Great Dividing Range, to the more arid plains to the west. Wiradjuri country covers three major rivers in NSW — the Macquarie, Lachlan, and Murrumbidgee, and continues south to reach the Murray. They maintained a cycle of ceremonies that moved in a ring around the whole tribal area, that led to tribal coherence despite the large occupied area.

Wiradjuri country

I'm not denying the crucial, central role of Aboriginal custodianship in Australian culture. And I'm not comparing my connection to that of Aboriginal people. My ancestral links go back to England, mainly, with a bit of Scotland and Ireland as well. A multiple-times great grandfather arrived in Sydney town in the second fleet, courtesy of His Majesty, for helping himself to a few necessities. It's the typical Anglo-Celtic version of an Australian story. And anyone of my generation who grew up in Australia is steeped in British culture. But I didn't actually get to England until I was in my 40s. I enjoy going there. But it's not Home. That's Sydney, but with a strong touch of the Central West — Wiradjuri country. The Tuscany of the South.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

The BOM site was going crazy late last week about the impending winter storm conditions that were going to sweep, Assyrian – wolf like, down on the southeast. Snow! Wind! Cold! Rain! End of CAWKI*! A big system pushing north from Antarctica. Snow down to 700 m, at any rate. Beauty, I think, a chance to get out and do some walking in the cold, possibly see some snow, feel buzzing finger tips and ears, eat something great in front of a roaring fire, with a glass of red.

A big system coming up from Antarctica. BOM image

Sunday sees me on a Blue Mountains bound train before dawn. It IS cold, on the walk from home to Central, but lovely in the carriage, as we head through dark suburbs to the inaptly-named Emu Plains. Well — have YOU ever seen an emu thereabouts?

About Warrimoo, the very first sun cuts the dark, a pale pink, nacreous glow; a huge ball of orange soon follows. It is exquisitely, heart-stoppingly beautiful, as I see it through darkened trees, and suggests that, at least to the east, the sky is unclouded. If we are going to see some snow, that system coming in from the west needs to make good time. 

Warrimoo sunrise

It is just after eight when I leave the train at Blackheath, elevation 1070 m. Crisp, but no snow. Rime and frost on the grass near the railway station, and I am off searching for a hot cup of tea and some breakfast.

Civic information, Blackheath

Area of Operations, west of the railway and town ridge

I get walking, and head southwest out of town along empty streets, to the Centennial Glen car park. The sign gnomes near there have a dim view of walking speed. 1.5 km in 40 minutes? Along a sealed road? Even I can walk faster than that. 

1.5 km in 40 minutes?

From the car park, the track winds west though low heath, which really is being blasted today, buffeted by a roaring gale from the west. The track runs along the spectacular cliff top, then takes a dive like an Italian soccer player; all ladders and cut steps, down the cliff line through a deep gully. In places spray from the creek flies up in drifts onto the ladder ways. I walk quickly through those, not wanting to start the day wet. In summer, this would be a lot of fun! Today, it will just be annoying, at best.

The track levels off and follows the base of the cliff line along Colliers Causeway. It is reasonably wide and even in some places, rough and narrow elsewhere.

The wide path ...

 ... and the narrow

 It is generally fairly easy walking. In places, there is some track improvement going on, with masonry works in progress, building retaining walls and easy paths.

Track upgrades

The path is usually right at the very base of the cliff — I can touch sandstone faces with my right hand all along here. The cliffed landscape is the defining, iconic feature of Blue Mountains.

Typical cliffed landscape of the Blue Mountains. Banks Wall Sandstone forms the cliffs in the western Blue Mountains, as here on the Blackheath ridge.

The western edge of the Blue Mountains is transitional land. Cliff-bound hills covered with nearly continuous eucalypt forest, give way westward to a more rolling terrain of open grassland, with patches of forest, usually forming the higher ground. And so it is, as well, with the original inhabitants. The western Blue Mountains, the Megalong and Burragorang valleys, is the home of the Gundungurra people, which continues south into the Southern Highlands. To the west is Wiradjuri land, home of the goanna people, dwellers of the grasslands of the Central West.

As always, geology is at the bottom of it. The cliffs in the western Blue Mountains are formed from my old acquaintance — Triassic-aged Banks Walls Sandstone, part of the Narrabeen Group in the Permo-Triassic (300 – 200 million years ago) Sydney Basin. Further east, down the mountains, beginning about Woodford, the cliffs are built of younger Hawkesbury Sandstone, which crops out so well around Sydney itself. Cliffs form when a resistant layer is underlain by a more easily-eroded rock layer. The soft rock erodes back more quickly, making an overhang; the overlying rock collapses, forming cliffs.

Overhang cave and cliff

Over time, the process continues and the cliff line retreats. In the Blue Mountains the rock layers are nearly flat-lying, so the cliffs can continue, essentially unbroken, along ridge lines for many kilometres. If you stand at vantage points like Govetts Leap in Blackheath, you see the cliffs extending, in spectacular fashion, all the way down the Grose Valley. The rock overhangs must have been magnets for Aboriginal occupation over millennia. They offer shelter, and water from seeps, dripping roofs and cascading streams. Further east, near Wentworth Falls, an occupation site has been dated at 20,000 years old, or possibly older. The tribes have walked these hills for a long, long time.

To the west Sydney Basin gives way to the underlying, older rocks of the Lachlan Fold Belt. These can be highly variable over short distances, compared to the regular, continuous geology of the Sydney Basin. Their variability give rise to the diverse range of landscapes, soil, and vegetation of the Central Tablelands and the Central West regions. Granites are often deeply eroded to soft, rolling landscapes with deep, relatively fertile soils that can sustain grasslands — such as the area around Bathurst. Stronger, more resistant rocks — often metamorphosed sandstone and mudstone, give rise to hilly county with shallow, stony soils that support forest, such as the prominent chains of hills — Mount Lambie, Dark Corner, the Catombal Range, the Hervey and Coccaparra Ranges.

And so, as I walk at the base of the cliff, I can look west across this geological, topographic, ecological, anthropological divide. I am looking through the forest, from Gundungurra land, to the more open grasslands of Wiradjuri country.

Looking through the trees, from Gundungurra, towards Wiradjuri country

Nestled in the valley, right at the bottom of the hill, is a white farm house and outbuildings, in an opening between the trees I can see a house which is the closest to the cliff line. I think of this as The First Farm.

The First Farm

The bush is mainly the olive drab, grey green of eucalyptus forest, but in the deep gullies, where the sun doesn’t penetrate easily, the vegetation changes to dense, multi-green temperate rainforest, fed by the constant spray from waterfalls.

By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,
And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling.

Temperate rain forest in the tight gullies

Scattered through the bush at this time of year, are splotches of beautiful lemon-yellow wattle — always the first to flower.

Even in the middle of winter, the wattles have got their hurry on, when other plants won’t start to flower until spring starts to warm them up. As well, there is a pretty, but tiny, pink trumpet-shaped flower. It’s pretty. It’s pink. It’s shaped like a trumpet.

That exhausts my knowledge on this plant. I’m better with rocks.

And, in the way of Blue Mountains bushwalks, at the end of the day you repeat the climbing, in reverse. Back up through the cliff line on ladder pitches, to win to the plateau again. At the top of the climb up Porters Pass, there is a lookout, with views again out to the west, over the mix of bush and pasture. This time, the wind is howling, fiercer than before, and a lot of cloud is inbound. I take a short time to enjoy the view, and celebrate my return to the top by supping a wee dram.

Cheers!

In this cold and wind, the whiskey is most welcome. It burns and warms on the way down. I think of the characters in Tim Winton’s “The Riders” — the father and the neighbour — who spent a lot of time standing in an Irish bog, taking a spot of drink against the cold. I don’t think I’ve ever drunk whiskey like this before — outdoors, in the whistling wind and with my fingers freezing. It’s a wonderful moment. The drinking and looking and general huzzah is cut short by the wind, which is screaming always more loud. As I take a picture, light flurries of snow arrive, and this makes my day. Snow, at last. It’s not settling, but, by God! I came to see snow, and here it is!

But the wind doesn't die, and I can feel my legs stiffening. I walk on, staying warm by keeping moving. It’s a short walk through the streets of 1930s holiday cottages, back to the railway station. Where a transformation has been wrought in my absence. The early morning Blackheath was empty of people, bar a few hardy (mad?) souls like me. Now, it is teeming with rubberneckers. It seems that tout Sydney and the mountains has ascended on Blackheath to witness the impending meteorological onslaught. Wintergeddon. The streets seem crowded but the indoors are even worse. The cafes are full to bursting; both pubs have queues as long as a mother-in-law’s memory, waiting to order counter lunches. My dream of a delicious and hearty feed in a quiet café is disappearing, fast. Eventually, I eat an indifferent steak sandwich in a crowded café. But it DOES have a roaring fire, and I am seated right next to it. I am looking out at more snow flurries, although they melt on hitting the ground.

On the way down the hill, there is a serendipitous moment. Near Warrimoo, where I saw the sunrise, the train runs through a short section, where a gap in the trees aligns with a gap in the hills. Far, far out to the east, on the coastal plain, I can see the skyscrapers of Sydney, 60 km away. A shaft of sun drops on the city, through a hole in the clouds, and it is beautiful, glowing, crystalline, in the way it is  lit up. It looks like Dick Whittington's London, Dorothy's Oz, beckoning me on.

This is pretty damn good, after a stiff walk. Warming up, enjoying a sit. Nodding off on the train home, whilst savouring chocolate and a surreptitious nip of whiskey. I drowse off. Simple delights on an afternoon after a stiff walk in the cold. Snow. Just a bit, but good enough.

            * CAWKI: Civilisation As We Know It