Blue Mountains Australia

Article Written By: MikeWilliams

The famous mountain range west of Sydney Australia is called the Blue Mountains.Nowdays Sydneys urban sprawl has pushed up to the base of the edge of the mountain range near at penrith and also in the the hawkesbury areas.

The mountains start semi officially about 50 kilometres west of the city's centre.The Blue Mountains national park begins on the western side of the Nepean River and extends in the west all the way to the Coxs River.

The plateaus and deep gorges descend to over 500 metres but also rise to snow capped points over 1,000 metres above sea level.The majority of the Blue Mountains National park is listed as a World Heritage area which also includes seven national parks.They were listed in the 1970`s as conservation areas.

The rough perimeter of the Blue Mountains encompasses the City of Hawkesbury, the City of Blue Mountains, the City of Oberon and with its most westerly city being the quaint Lithgow.

It is well known that there were thousands of years of habitation before white settlers moved into the area.They have left us their art as a reminder of their presence.The well known hand stencil art is in Red Hands Cave at.We have also found axe sharpening areas.

It is now known that the koori inhabitants used two main paths to move around through the mountain areas.The bilpin ridge was the most often used followed by the Cox`s river.The river paths were easier and lead to the farming area called the kanimbla valley.

Initially, european settlers considered the sandstone mountains impossible to penetrate due to the variety of extreme weather conditions encountered as well as the thickness of the vegetative canopy.The myth of the difficulty was encouraged by the authorities in the hope of scaring the convicts away from thoughts of escaping.

A released former convict, John p Wilson, is now believed by many historians to have actually been the first white man to have managed to crossed the Blue Mountains.He also lived with local koori`s and came back in 1797.He is the forgotten man in Australian history books.

Wilsons colourful descriptions of these areas later appeared accurate but he was never accepted at the time as discoverer due to class distinctions and the desire to discourage escaping convicts.Local aboriginals killed him for stealing one of their women.He may have been wild but he was an accurate observer of the area.

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Blue Mountains Australia

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