The Blue Mountains is boring they said!!

With that ringing in my ears, The Mole headed off for NSW’ Blue Mountains last weekend to discover if it was boring or were there heaps of things to do.

So, into the www.luxurycarhire.com.au rented Mercedes Benz 320CLK softop and staying at the classic Mountain Heritage Resort and Spa, the weekend was all but complete, but for the first important place to set it all in context.

If you visit the Blue Mountains without seeing The Edge, then your visit is incomplete, because this massive screen film, [pictured right] although made in 1995 and it has not dated, sets the whole of this pristine wilderness, so close to Sydney in its real setting and context.

Not only is the photography stunning and definitely edge of your seat stuff, but the lessons about how the Blue Mountains all came about and the environment, helps us understand how precious the Blue Mountains are and how important it is to do everything we can to ensure that they are preserved – there are few cities in the world with a million hectares of impenetrable wilderness hundreds right on their doorstep.

The Edge goes on to tell you that what we do not realise is that when the Grand Canyons were just shallow creeks, the cliffs and chasms of the Blue Mountians looked much as they do today, with the discovery and re-discovery of the Blue Mountains giving a chance for us to hear one of the great stories of humankind.

The Edge tells that bordering on a city of four million people it is little known that only in October 1994, an explorer found himself standing in a grove of “dinosaur trees” that, until that moment, were believed to have been extinct for more than twenty million years.

The earth here is so ancient that it is drained of almost all nutrients and plants and animals have evolved an extraordinary economy and agriculture wouldn’t work here, with the climate always dominated by the EI Nino effect making rainfall completely unpredictable and the poor, ancient soil would blow away if it was disturbed.

The aborigines, who developed intensive agriculture in New Guinea tens of thousands of years ago, learned in Australia to live lightly and they built a whole world view, a whole society, on an enduring but delicate foundation of respect for the earth.

To set it in perspective, the section of the Blue Mountains that is “World Heritage” listed is the size of Belgium, with the audience of the massive screen The Edge having the incredible privilege of being taken to see the Wollemi pines and there is nothing else remotely like them on earth.

They are huge at 120ft tall and they look like no other living tree, with the nearest approximation being that they look like pine trees with palm fronds replacing the branches and the leaves on the fronds radiating out in four directions instead of two.

There is just one stand of about forty trees in the known universe and discovering them was as likely as finding a live dinosaur wandering through the bush, with their exact location absolutely secret, with clearly everyone supportive of any measures that were necessary to protect these trees, because their loss would be catastrophic.

The Edge Movie screens daily all year round and boring?  Never.

Oops, back in the Merc, roof down and back to the Mountain Heritage Hotel and and Spa Retreat to meet Basil and Sybil – aka Ian and Trish and of course another fabulous dinner!  For more information visit: www.mountainheritage.com.au

Tomorrow The Mole goes airborne over some of The Blue Mountains’ canyons!

The Mole was a guest of The Mountain Heritage Resort and Spa – www.mountainheritage.com.au and Luxury Car Hire- www.luxurycarhire.com.au

A Special Blue Mountains Report by The Mole