Not at all local, although the eventual destination is not far from our other Not-Quite-Local walks such as Mount Hay (N-QLW 6).  We had to drive right up to Mt Victoria, then part-way down the Bells Line-of-Road to start this walk.  We joined some other very experienced Blue Mountains walkers: Bill (an ex-Yorkshireman), three ex-Brits (incl. David) an ex-Uzbekistani (Yuli) and three Australian born-and-bred walkers. A magnificent day out.

                    The left-hand trace is from my Garmin watch, the right-hand map from Bill’s record of our day out

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d01pncpu1jmceqr/AAB1OyT0Zo1zPTRikhEwcCi0a?dl=0

To start with, the scenery is magnificent.  The tablelands (where the roads and settlements are) is cut into by steep-sided valleys, creating “walls” of sandstone, which might easily be 50-100m high, dropping down into valleys covered by gum-trees either side of the creeks.  There are fire-trails (access roads just cleared of trees but very rough) penetrating these areas.  The height of the tablelands makes the peaks look slightly less impressive, but Mount Banks, for instance, is over 1060 meters high.

We stopped on the way to look at these extraordinary patterns of erosion in the rock (Click to enlarge as ever).  Apparently as the sandstone is laid down, intermittently something gets into the layer which makes it harder to erode, hence the “ripple” effect.

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On the way down we were buffeted by seriously strong wind.  This photo. doesn’t really do it justice, but at times it was difficult to stand, let alone walk across rough ground.

A great day out.