This is something I wrote many years ago to try to express why I just love walking in the mountains. My appreciation of being able to live in these mountains grows every day as I see people crowded into cities, people racing after more and more material goods because they feel so empty but don't know what's missing. I am lucky beyond words.

The Grand Canyon at Blackheath, Blue Mountains NPAll photos by Robert Sterry

12 | BWA October 2020

The Grand Canyon at Blackheath, Blue Mountains NP

Where do I go for rest and renewal? For peace and inspiration? To discover, yet again, that feeling of awe and wonder and belonging that is so easily lost in the bustle of modern life? To my own backyard - my beautiful Blue Mountains where a lifetime is not enough to explore the many and varied sites, especially as each time an area is revisited, something new is discovered.

I love the awesome sheer cliffs with their age-old wisdom as they preside over green valleys below:- their colours in all shades of cream, yellow, orange, red and grey and everything in between, most ending in gentle scree slopes built up over millions of years of erosion. I love the many weird and wonderful shapes of the pagoda rocks which appear suddenly here and there like long-forgotten temples or lost cities. Then there are the bands of ironstone twisted into the most incredible ways. And the caves, crevices and overhangs where surely fairies and other nature spirits must reside. Above all these are the gentle ridges and flat tops which are all that remain of a once-huge plateau - or was it a long-gone seabed or lake?

Let me tell you about the creeks and waterfalls. There are the ones that tumble down playfully from rock to rock, pool to pool to suddenly plunge over a cliff down a sheer rock face way down to the valley below in one long drop or in a series of falls, as if to prolong the bliss of freedom for a short time, before continuing on their restricted, restless way. Yet others hide themselves shyly in ferny, mossy, cool corners where they fall into crystal clear pools to play with the fairy folk for a while before continuing on their way to join a river and eventually the ocean. Sometimes they, laughingly, cascade from one series of rock terraces to the next, staying but a moment to flirt and tease with wet spray flying, before rushing on and ever down. However, the most daring and exciting are those that disappear down narrow, deep canyons - some of them so dark and narrow that even ferns can't grow on their fantastically sculptured walls. Here I can really feel the heart of the earth and merge with its ageless beauty.

BWA October 2020 | 13

Yvonne on Mount Owen with The Castle behind, Budawangs NP

And I must speak of the hanging gardens and swamps on the cliffs and slopes and canyon walls, the fantastic shapes of the trees that are able to send roots into tiny cracks and crevices to find that little bit of moisture needed for survival, the orchids and ferns clinging, and thriving, on patches of moss on the rocks and the lichens that manage to grow everywhere - on rocks and cliffs, dead and living trees and wherever there is some moisture. They are like exquisite paintings, festooning everything, especially patches of primordial rain forest. I love the creepers and vines, the new red shoots and the wild flowers that seem to survive in impossible places under impossible conditions. And who hasn't stood awestruck at the shapes and colours of the fungi when they emerge from the ground to reproduce?

Then there are the mists of the morning, the blue haze of the day, the howling gales and the gentle breezes, the energy-draining heat of summer, the cloud-filled valleys and that fresh, fresh air. And of course there's the bird-song echoing across the gorges as well as the flies and snakes and other small animals that all have their part to play.

These mountains are my Book about the Great Mystery, always opening at a different page ever more wonderful and exciting. These mountains, from the hugeness of the cliffs and valleys to the smallness of the ferny glens and mossy creeks, are my church, filling me with love and peace. Sometimes they make me feel so puny and insignificant until I remember that I, too, am a page of that wonderful precious Book.

Yvonne started bushwalking as a child with her mother, who loved exploring new areas, later taking her infant's class on small Katoomba walks. Yvonne has lived in the Blue Mountains since 1983. Canyons were always a great thrill, with overnight walk favourites being the Grand Traverse above Newnes and the Budawangs. It was a pleasure to take her children and family members on walks and go walking overseas. Now in her early 70s her body is starting to tell her she's ageing, but she's inspired by those in their 80s still walking. She only wants to go to Heaven if there are lots of great walking tracks.