Simply Australia

Mountains most spectacular lookouts. A trig and sandstone outcrops, showing some visitation by careless picnickers, rise to the north of the four-wheel-drive route.

 

On clear days, the Eucalypt forests can be seen sweeping sharply down towards the main valley of the Wolgan. Escarpment features like Cape Horn and the brow of Donkey Mountain punctuate the middle ground. You can see over much of the ridge west of the Wolgan to the crests of Pantoneys Crown, Mount Genowlan and Mount Tayan.

On the way there one passes areas of the plateau much affected by Angus Place and other collieries. It is to be hoped oases like the Bird Rock Reserve inspire the long- term preservation and, where necessary, revegetation of Newnes Plateau.

© Don Morison

The mid 1970’s was a pivotal era for the beautiful Boyd Plateau, now part of the Kanangra-Boyd Wilderness Area. A proposal emerged for a 2000 hectare pine plantation which would have destroyed the last sub-alpine forest in Central NSW (source: Colong Foundation website). After a public campaign, investigations by the State Pollution Control Commission, with input from the Colong Foundation, led to the sparing of the native forest in 1975.

In 1994, as the National Parks and Wildlife Service sought to buy out agricultural inholdings on the Plateau, the Upper Blue Mountains Conservation Society, a predecessor to Blue Mountains Conservation Society, made a major financial contribution.

Today the integration of the Budthingaroo pastoral lands into the surrounding forest is gradually continuing. Lichen encrusts the small plaque about 300 metres from the Kanangra Walls Road which acknowledges the Society’s donation. Red Grevillea plants and many other natives dot the remaining pastures.

 

On a recent visit, Society members disturbed mobs of Eastern Grey Kangaroos, observed migrating white butterflies, and trod carefully around a newly dug wombat burrow. It was a time to feel truly grateful to the past activists from Upper Blue Mountains Conservation Society and the Colong Foundation as well as the officers from National Parks and other state government bodies who envisaged an intact wilderness surviving for generations on the plateau.

 

© Don Morison

Nestling in the typical Blue Mountains ridge Eucalypt forest south of Mount Victoria are the remnants of a most unusual industrial operation. From 1925 to 1930 an incline railway operated to a main line siding from the valley, carrying timber and the rock known as chert. (Source: F. John Reid, article in “Light Railways”, January 1979.)

The main attraction to entrepreneurs was the chert. Although this rock had always been highly prized by local indigenous people, the European settlers wanted to use it as an alternative to blue metal in road base. The felling and extraction of timber from the valley was considered a bonus.

The entire enterprise was never as successful as hoped and the operation changed owners at least once during the few years before its abandonment.

The archaeological site represented by the old siding and incline head station is now on a publicly accessible walking track from Fairy Bower picnic area at Mount Victoria along the western side of the railway to the north end of Station Street Blackheath. Apart from the concrete blocks (pictured) you can still see a number of old items from the 1920s lying about if you look carefully.

In the 1980s, Jim Smith and the late Wilf Hilder re-established a walking track from Fairy Bower picnic area to the bottom station, deep in the valley west of Mill Creek. This area proved particularly rich in relics such as old skips as well as chert and timber that was never loaded. They named the track “The Kinderin Track”, taking a local indigenous word.

It is sobering, even now, to think that this rich lode of a resource, respected by the traditional owners, was so messily and unsuccessfully disrupted.

© Don Morison