The Blue Mountains

About 8okm West of Sydney is a range of Mountains called The Blue Mountains and this range separates the greater coastal Sydney from the interior. They are more like a range of hills compared to what we would really call mountains in SA, but there are some spectacularly beautiful views from up there nevertheless. They are called the Blue Mountains because of the blue ephemeral haze that hangs over them. I thought that it was largely atmospheric, but apparently it is caused by the vapour from the many eucalyptus or blue gum trees that cover the mountains. I heard that in a fire, this vapour can actually ignite and spread the fires frighteningly quickly. The photos looking out from Echo point show a rock formation called The Three sisters - reminiscent of Drie Susters in SA. Anyway, there is a legend attached to them which i suppose you can google, but basically, as I understand it, there were 3 brothers from one tribe who fell in love with 3 young women from an enemy tribe and when the tribes went to war, in order to protect the 3 ladies from harm, the witchdoctor cast a spell on them to turn them into stone for the duration of the battle, intending to return them to life after the battle whereupon they could be reunited with their lovers. Unfortunately, the witchdoctor was killed in the ensuing battle and the poor ladies have been stuck in their rock formation ever since. The first recorded case, to my knowledge, of there being evidence of Afrikaner chicks in Aus before my wife. :-)