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THE BLUE MOUNTAINS |
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In earlier centuries, the Blue Mountains formed part of the territories of the Darug and Gundungurra Aboriginal people, and to the west the Wiradjuri, who used the natural resources of the vast expanse of forests and gorges. Some of their camp sites and rock art are still evident. After the settlement of Sydney in the late 18th century, the Mountains were seen as a formidable barrier to access to the inland region. In 1813, a small group of explorers found a route through the Mountains and, in the following yea During the 19th century, small settlements began to emerge along the road. Some of these (Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth) were later named after the early explorers. A rail link was established by 1867 from Penrith to Weatherboard (now Wentworth Falls) and reached Mount Victoria in the following year. In 1869 the great Zigzag was completed to take the railway down into Lithgow Valley and beyond. The railway made cheap and regular transport to the Mountains possible for the first time. Hotels and boarding houses Today, some two to three million tourists visit the Mountains annually. Residents in the 27 or so scattered villages and townships that form the City of the Blue Mountains, now total 77,000. It remains, however, a quiet, mainly residential region linking the rapidly expanding Sydney region with the pastoral lands of Hartley Vale and the Bathurst Plains and the industrial and mining Lithgow region to the west. There are no major industries in the Mountains other than tourism. The mining of coal and oil-shale at Katoomba ceased by the mid-20th century and the site was taken over by Scenic World, today a highly popular tourist attraction. The Greater Blue Mountains were declared a World Heritage Area in November, 2000. |
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BMACHO: Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage Organisations Inc. |
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r, the first road was built., This allowed access to the grazing lands beyond and followed the line of the present Great Western Highway. A decade later, an alternative route, Bells Line of Road, was created on the north side of the Grose Valley, but this remained a stock route only until the twentieth century.
soon sprang up for tourists, country retreats were built by the well-to-do seeking summer respite from the heat of the Cumberland Plain, and some spectacular hospitals were built for those suffering from tuberculosis.