After the fire

A couple of weeks ago, Katoomba came to a standstill as a fire swept up the valley towards the township. The High School had to be evacuated and it came particularly close to the hotel Lilianfels, which is the luxury flagship hotel of the Blue Mountains.

The fire came right up to the road, only metres from the hotel frontage. At the top the gully nearby is Katoomba Falls with its creek running down the middle of the gully. The hotel side of this gully is completely blackened to the creek, and the other side untouched.

It was very eerie to see such devastation surrounded by the merry sound of the water splashing its way down into the Jamison Valley.

This gully was particularly prized for its gigantic tree ferns, many of which are now blackened stumps. This is one of them. Each burnt out nodule represents where a fern frond grew in the past.

Here is a link to the soft tree fern Dicksonia Antartica if you are interested in seeing what they look like prior to a fire.

Better larger.