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.