We are SO, SO lucky.
Springtime in Glenbrook is lovely, and our local walks are spectacularly beautiful at present, with the springtime flowers. 

This is a Waratah – the symbolic flower of New South Wales.

Most Europeans (including myself prior to coming here) do not think of Australia as a land of lovely flowers. Yet at times it is – see the previous ‘blog – and just at present the local bushland is at its floral best, I believe.

The waratah flower is about the size of a rose, and is always some shade of red.  As we walked through Glenbrook Gorge this week there were quite a few of them, as well as the other flowers shows in the previous ‘blog.

As we walked into the creek, we walked along one of the many paths we now realise exist in our local countryside, purely for recreation: apparently in the early railway tourism days, all the local townships competed to attract tourists, constructing paths and staircases for walkers to use to see the valleys.

There are some beautiful little creeks feeding onto the  main one.

Some more pictures of Waratahs.

I have concentrated on showing some of the beautiful and/or interesting walks nearby, and in some ways this one was both of those adjectives.  However it also illustrates another side to the Australian landscape.

There are three local route up the first rise into the lower Blue Mountains: the main highway, then a little northwards and now down-traffic only is the original route up, Mitchell’s Pass, and further north is the Old Bathurst Road, up which I used to cycle regularly when we lived in Mount Riverview.

On this occasion, we walked from our house through the streets to Knapsack Gully Reserve, between the Old Bathurst Road and below Mitchell’s Pass.  Through this area, Lapstone Creek runs down the escarpment. 

The railway borders the area at the eastern end, and it is a sign of how much water suddenly can come down the creek after rainfall, that there is a culvert under the railway embankment almost large enough for a single track railway line!

From the creek it is possible to look of at some spectacular rock ledges, which overhang the creek.

Unfortunately this spot also provided a suitable place for people to dump cars spectacularly over the rock ledge.  Stolen or just end-of-life, who knows?

According to local lore, it is mostly stolen cars, but then why dump them like this?

It’s also clear that some have been carried down the creek by the raging waters when in flood, as they are now far below a cliff off which they could have been dumped.

Fortunately this appalling practice has been stopped by the Highway Authority, largely by growing trees all along the side of Mitchell’s Pass roadway.