29 December

When I was a kid, my grandmother said to me in front of a Blue Mountains scene a bit like this one, “it’s a mess, so untidy”. I chuckled at the time and thought she was being a typical European settler, not understanding the landscape. Here’s how George Evans the explorer, one of the first Europeans to see the Blue Mountains, described them in the early 19th century: “a fine appearance, the Trees being thin and the hills covered...with pasture to their tops.” One to reflect on in the bushfires.