From Grand vistas to a single leaf

Happy New Year to everyone!
I haven't posted for a long time here... no excuse except trying to do too many things at the one time. I have been on my summer holidays here and last week (or was it the week before) I escaped the city and had a few days up in the mountains - the blue mountains(plateaus is more accurate)...it is only 1.5 hours drive from the center of Sydney. Wonderful vistas looking down into valleys.


A consistent sandstone escarpment separates the tourist from the valleys - so any hikes involve a steep climb down and then back up again. As I was on my own I stayed on the top. Still plenty to see and sketch.

The mountains are supposedly bluer than normal due to the haze of the eucalyptus oil from all the gum trees - sometimes the blueness is very strong.

The most famous rock formation is the three sisters

...but my favourite place is pulpit rock which few people know about - you can walk down to an exposed rocky outcrop and sit on a bench and feel like you own the valley.

There is the scary 'pulpit' itself... I wasn't quite up to sketching way down there this time.

From sketching the grand vista I picked the most ordinary leaf and tried to describing it using the coolest 6 page laminated card that I got at a nearby shop. I can see that I am going to use this card to appear very knowledgeable! I never realised that there were so many different types of leaf bases and that they all have names. I am rather discovered by this discovery...

More details here