On the Six Foot Track, with a poet and a piebald.

The six foot track was originally developed as a bridle path six feet wide, covering the 26 miles from Katoomba to Jenolan Caves in 1884. Lord Carrington, then Governor General, and Lady Carrington, traveled the track in September 1887 in company with the noted local guide Harry Peckman, known from his versifying as the Poetical Whip, who entertained them along the way with his songs and recitations. When Lady Carrington found it hard going, Harry told her to catch hold of his piebald horse's tail, she at first refused until her husband remarked, "Now then, Lil', do as the guide tells you", her ladyship took the advice and from then on she was alright. They camped at Little River and broke out the champagne and other good things, Harry gave them billy tea and finished off the bubbly with his brother. Some time later the piebald died, Harry cut off the tail and kept it as a souvenir of Lady Carrington. The track passes through some of the most beautiful, rugged and inaccessible country of the southern Blue Mountains National Park and may take up to 4 days to traverse or as little as 5-6 hours for runners in the six foot track marathon, definitely not me. My younger son and I drove in along the fire trail from the Jenolan end as far as the Cox's River and camped overnight at Little River. I photographed these wild ponies as they grazed on fresh pasture after rain. They probably descend from pit ponies released by the miners after the Katoomba coal mines closed in the 1930s. The rivers were still low with no spawn run fish showing, although a few smaller resident fish showed interest in a dry fly. A school group arrived and took over the Cox's camp ground, they had walked in from the Katoomba end, so we left early and headed back the way we came. No sign of old Harry, just the ponies, there was a piebald one.

Prehistoric rock engraving

I rediscovered this hand sized circle engraved into the sandstone under a layer of rotting leaves on the cliff edge at Katoomba. After trying some ordinary shots for about half an hour, the late afternoon sun slanted through the cloud for a few seconds and revealed it in relief. The second photo shows the view from the cliff edge with the engraving in the foreground in front of the rocky spire. You can stand on top of the spire, carefully, and look out over the vast space to the cliffs on the other side of the valley at Sublime Point - breathtaking.

The Gundungurra people occupied this part of the Blue Mountains in the recent past and it may date from that period of more intense use beginning around 3-4,000 year ago, or from the end of the last ice age around 10,000 years before present when regular seasonal use appears in the archaelogical record or even from a period of earlier intermitent occupation around 22,000 years BP.

Engravings like this one were made with stone tools by first pecking a series of holes and then abraiding the connecting walls, you can see a small remaining section of the left. It is one of only two known circular stone engravings in the Blue Mountains and like many religious objects its simple form belies its deeply sacred nature.