Sunday, 11 August 2013

The view from the train window

While the nearby Blue Mountains attract most of the tourists, the Capertee district has stunning landscapes which are the equal of its better known neighbour. The local tourist office tries its best to promote the district, and recently described the Capertee Valley on its website, as an area of ‘spectacular scenery and timeless beauty’. Surprisingly  talking about the charms of the region is not a recent development. One of the first people to promote the tourist potential of the area was a letter writer to the Sydney Morning Herald in 1888. This anonymous correspondent took exception to an earlier report in the paper that ignored the scenic qualities of the Capertee area in a story about railway tourism within the state. 


Crown Ridge looking East, watercolour by Conrad Martens
Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW


SCENERY ON THE RAILWAY LINES

To a sub-leader of October 29 you make mention of the scenery along different lines of our railways, but I notice with regret that you omit mention altogether of the Mudgee line from Ben Bullen to Ilford, a distance of about 20 miles, the railway skirts the vast depression of the Capertee Valley, and as the train winds around the Crown Ridge, near Capertee Station, and further on by Carlos Gap and Brogan’s Creek, the view is in my opinion unequalled on any line of railway in the colony. The tremendous masses of Hawkesbury sandstone, in many cases showing a perpendicular unbroken face of 300ft., towering higher and yet higher in the distance, until the Bulga Mountains overlooking Singleton can be distinctly seen, and the lofty cone-shaped Tien Peak with its trigonometrical station at its summit, present all weathers one of the finest spectacles of rugged mountain scenery in Australia.

To those tourists who are tired of the beaten track of the Blue Mountains, as represented by Katoomba, Blackheath, and Mount Victoria, I would recommend a visit to the Capertee district. There is a hotel close to the railway station, where good accommodation can be obtained. I am confident that the beauties of this place are but to be seen and explored to be appreciated, and I predict a future before it second only to Katoomba. To the geologist it presents special features of interest. At few places in New South Wales are there so many or such a variety of fossil and petrefactions [sic] obtainable. The late Professor Denton spent some time at the place, and expressed great interest in all he saw. He gave it as his opinion that the vast depression was at one time one of the largest fresh-water lakes in the colony.

Friday, 2 August 2013

Ian Brown - nature photographer

A regular visitor to the Capertee district is the Blue Mountains-based photographer Ian Brown. While many photographers are happy to take shots from lookouts and roadsides, Ian is a keen bush walker, rock climber and paddler so is able to take images rarely seen by others. In this post we include several of his photos which were taken in the Capertee area.

Pantoneys Crown, photo by Ian Brown

Pantoneys Crown is one of the most recognisable rock features in the Capertee Valley. Here we see a sunrise shot of the massif from Point Cameron in the Gardens of Stone National Park. On the horizon behind Pantoneys Crown are the peaks of the Mugii Murumban-Ban State Conservation Area. The image was taken by Ian in May 2011.

Capertee Gorge, photo by Ian Brown

This photo of Capertee Gorge was taken near Gospers Creek during a rain shower in June 2013. The location is in the Wollemi National Park and a similar image will be in Ian's limited edition 2014 Wild Blue Mountains Calendar which will be available for sale in September. The Capertee River Gorge and the rocky tops of the Gardens of Stone NP are Ian's favourite walking spots in the area.

Capertee River, photo by Ian Brown
Amateur photographers know so well the difficulty in getting evenly-lit images in locations with both sun and shade, but in this photo Ian nails it. This view of the Capertee River was taken in the morning during November 2012. The location was about 10 km downstream of Coorongooba camp ground in the Wollemi National Park.

Photographer Ian Brown in the Fiordland 
National Park in New Zealand

Growing out of a love of bushwalking Ian has been a serious photographer for about 30 years. Photography was his response to the magnificent landscapes he was seeing and a way of conveying this to others. Later photography became integral to his involvement in nature conservation and a way of arguing for protection of wilderness. Reflecting this, Ian authored a fantastic book in 2003 titled Wild Blue: World Heritage splendour of the Greater Blue Mountains, a well illustrated environmental and natural history of the area. His work has also appeared in numerous calendars, diaries, books and other publications, and has been widely exhibited in the Blue Mountains.

Ian usually takes two cameras on his vigorous bushwalks, a Canon 'full frame' digital and a metal 4x5 inch view camera. Earlier this year Ian was short-listed in the Wilderness category for the prestigious Australian Geographic Wildlife Photographer of the Year award.

We hope you enjoyed seeing a few of Ian's fine images, and we hope to show more of his work in the future. For more information about Ian's images and publications please refer to his website at the following link.
http://ianbrownphotography.com.au/
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