Skip main menu.

Skip to sub navigation ...

Posts tagged ‘blue mountains’

Much needed time out

I took a whole day (mostly) away from work yesterday. And I spent part of it walking in the wilderness with a friend. I’ve been struggling with some health issues in the last few days and decided I need to do something inspiring to help me feel a bit better – and as if I’m not just a work machine!

So we headed out for a brief exploration of Butterbox Point near Mount Hay in the Blue Mountains, a few kilometres away from where I live. I’ve been wanting to go to this spot for about a year now after seeing some beautiful photographs of it.


Butterbox Point – also called the Hay Monolith, I believe. To give an idea of scale the cave seen at the base of the rocks to the right is almost as tall as an average room.

To get there requires a relatively slow drive of 15km along a narrow, winding and hilly dirt road, which for about 90% of the way is surrounded by nothing but beautiful wilderness. After a fairly scary (and very slow!) drive along a slippery and uneven section of cliff face, we soon came to the end of the road, with the top of Mount Hay looming in front of us and a walking track heading off into the heath.

Right from where we left the car the views are spectacular, but of course they got better the further we walked. And the landscape surrounding the track is very beautiful. Even on a grey day in winter it looked very pretty and there were plenty of wildflowers – in a couple of months time I imagine the area will be carpeted in them.

We walked out to Butterbox Point which is perched on the edge of the Grose Valley and around to the back of it, where we sat for a while and enjoyed the amazing views down into the huge valley wilderness below. There wasn’t a soul to be seen apart from ourselves and it was very still and quiet, apart from some birds singing.

We pondered a memorial carved into the rock for someone who had died in 1997 and wondered if they really had died at that very spot (the drop into the valley is a few hundred metres from that point and there is no fencing). And then we turned back, feeling that what we could see of the rest of the track was a bit too exposed and covered in a few too many loose rocks to feel especially safe.

So by the time I got home I did feel better. And I’m feeling very keen to go back out there again to do some more serious exploring – and much more serious photo taking (I had my camera on the wrong setting and the photos I did take are mostly terrible!).

Things that make you go ‘hmmm’

At 1am on Saturday morning I found myself standing outside for an hour or so in the near freezing temperature wearing fairly light clothes I’d thrown on in a hurry. Why? Well, I was watching a neighbour’s house burn to the ground in a ball of incredibly fierce, white-hot fire.

I first went outside in my PJs to investigate some strange noises. As I reached my driveway I was confronted with an enormous wall of bright red and yellow – clearly a big fire and very close (just one backyard away). I ran inside and got the phone – and then made myself go outside again to double-check what I’d seen as I couldn’t quite believe it! I called emergency and was told that the fire brigade were already on their way.

The thing that scared me most at first was noticing big embers blowing directly into the huge pine trees right next to my house. Realistically it was probably too cold for them to catch alight, but in the shock of seeing it my first thought was that I needed to evacuate. If it had been summer instead of the middle of winter, that would have been very necessary.

But I calmed down and decided the first priority had to be to go and make sure neighbours were awake, check if anyone was hurt and to find out if there was anything I could do.

A few people were there already when I arrived, including a couple of boys hosing down the roof next door which was very close to going up in flames. The hose was making little difference and the first house was too far gone – just minutes after the fire had started – to be saved. At that stage I could only just make out the shape of the lovely old house through the flames which completely engulfed it.

I asked someone if everyone was okay and she told me that the family who live in the house were away, the people whose house was almost on fire seemed not to be home and the people the other side were away too. There was nothing I could do, other than keep an eye on whether there was any potential for my own place to be seriously at risk.

Finally the fire brigade arrived, much to everyone’s relief as by then the fire inside the front of the house was white hot and there were numerous explosions inside – for a few moments it seemed like the entire front of the house was going to explode. Because the first house was clearly well beyond saving they focused immediately on saving the second one, which thankfully they were able to do.

It took about an hour for the fire people and their five fire trucks to get it under control, by which time a lot more neighbours had woken up to the sound of sirens and had come outside into the cold with stunned looks on their faces.

By the time the fire was controlled there was nothing much left of the house. The frame had collapsed and burnt. When I went back in daylight the next morning to have a look it’s clear that the owners have lost everything, apart from their picket fence which is still standing there as if nothing has happened. At the front where the fire was most intense there’s just a blackened rectangle on the ground to indicate that there was ever a room there.

So it’s been making me think a lot about possessions and what they really mean. And about risk and that sort of thing too. I live in a similar wood-framed house and it was stunning to see just how fast, fiercely and completely such a house can burn. Also I know that the first neighbour to call emergency did so only a minute or two after the fire started, yet the house was still entirely lost.

But also it’s been making me think about chance. It’s incredibly lucky that the family were away – it was late at night and they have young children, so its hard to know if they would have made it out safely. And it’s also very lucky for everyone nearby that this didn’t happen in summer. That part of the street is considered ‘indefensible’ in a bushfire and all of the houses and trees nearby could have easily gone up in different weather conditions – including my place with the wind blowing in the same direction.

The other thing I have been giving some thought to is that based on what witnesses told the police on the night, the fire was considered to be suspicious. If that’s backed up by other evidence, it’s definitely a cause for concern. It makes me glad I go to bed so late and that I have so many external doors to my home!

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that everyone should be in some way prepared for something like this just in case. I’ve given a lot of thought as to what to do if there are bushfires threatening my town, but not so much to a regular house fire. It’s something I’ll be thinking more about now.

Time out in the Blue Mountains

Bridal Veil Falls at Govett's Leap.I have to confess that I basically suck when it comes to taking time out!

But living in the Blue Mountains is definitely helping to motivate me in that regard as it’s easy for me to head off for beautiful walks or to take in gorgeous views or to explore a town I’ve not really looked at before.

Today was one of those days when I felt inspired to take some time out to enjoy a perfect blue sky day with incredibly crisp, fresh air (which is also very cold!).

After a pleasant breakfast I headed up to Blackheath – a few towns further up the Mountains from where I live – to go to Govett’s Leap lookout and take in the spectacular view over the huge Grose Valley, including of the very pretty Bridal Veil Falls.

There were a handful of people there from all over the world taking it in with me and it made me happy to think that I can come and enjoy it whenever I like!

Govett's Leap view over Pulpit Rock, Mt Hay and Butterbox Point.
View over one of the labyrinth-type areas of the Grose Valley, taking in Pulpit Rock, Mount Hay and (I think!) Butterbox Point where I plan to go walking very soon.

I took a few photos, gazed at the view for ages, took in lots of fresh air, wandered to different spots around the lookout and wished I was wearing my walking shoes to do a bit more exploring (next time!).

Now I’m home again I thought I’d share what I enjoyed.

Plants clinging to the cliff top at Govett's Leap.
Remnants of some flowers clinging to the top of the cliff.

To give an idea of scale, you have to remember that the carpet of green in the valley is made up of full size (ie. very tall!) gum trees. The tops of the cliffs can be up to 500 metres above the bottom of the valley floor.

Grose Valley view with Bridal Veil Falls to the right.
Grose Valley view with Bridal Veil Falls to the right.

I’ve got more photos from today and lots of other photos from the Blue Mountains in my Flickr if you’d like to see more.

The weather!

Oh yes, I’m going to blog about the weather. But with good reason!

Big hailstone picked up next to my front door.
This big hailstone is one I picked up next to my front door – there were bigger ones but it was dangerous to go out and get them. I got bruises just from trying to cover my car!

In recent weeks the weather has been taking up an enormous amount of time and headspace as I clean up puddles of water inside my house, strategically place containers to collect drips also inside, deal with damage from enormous hailstones (including to my new car … excellent), deal with the real estate agents re the leaks and doors and windows that no longer open and close properly … and generally cower in fear wondering when the ceilings will collapse or the roof will fall apart!

It really has been that bad where I live. Despite being the middle of summer – and what we were warned would be a long, very dry and dangerously fire-prone season. Instead it has rained and rained and rained, stormed and stormed and stormed.

View of the rain from my front door.This has been going on since Christmas, but in the last fortnight has been unbelievably bad. People who have lived in this area for 30 years or more say they’ve never seen anything like it.

Nearby there have been mudslides and rock falls closing roads and train lines – there was even a train derailed. A house not far away had lightning come through a window and set curtains on fire! A gas pipe exploded after being hit by lightning as well. There have been many fallen trees, dirt roads (there are plenty of those around here) have fallen apart and sealed roads now have enormous potholes in them. Then there are all of the car accidents, power outages and other issues!

On the upside, drought conditions are suddenly looking better and our dams have had an enormous amount of desperately needed water go into them. And my garden looks greener than it did at the end of winter!

But all up it’s been very disruptive and there appears to be more to come, starting this very afternoon.

In addition I’ve been dealing with a few issues to do with my housing situation, which is currently less than happy. I’m working on sorting that out at the moment, which is also fairly disruptive.

I am getting orders out generally within the usual timeframe, unless the weather is so severe I can’t risk going out or if the power is out at the post office! However, I am a bit slow on the communications front at the moment, so please bear with me.

In the garden

Grevillea flower.Today I took some photographs in my garden – part of researching for new jewellery designs, but also just because the flowers are so beautiful now that spring is in full swing. So I thought I’d share some of them.

Not sure which – if any – will make it into new handmade jewellery pieces, but you never know! The garden here is certainly inspiring, but so is the national park at the end of my street, where I go walking regularly. I’ve been taking plenty of photos of plants in there too.

You can find more on my Flickr.

Cornflower.
tea-tree
nasturtium
Chive flower
pinks

Little inspirations

One of the things I’m particularly enjoying (and planning to make use of!) about my new location is all of the little inspirations I’m finding in nature up here in the Blue Mountains.

Snowflake flowers from my garden.

Whether it be in my fairly densely planted cottage garden or out walking in the national park, there certainly are a lot of them. Also nature seems to constantly evolve fairly dramatically here as the year moves forward, at the moment most notably in terms of flowers, with some disappearing and new ones appearing.

Yellow flowers in the national park.

At some point soon I’m hoping to start working on some handmade jewellery designs incorporating some inspiration gleaned from my new surroundings.

Australian native - a seedpod of some sort I assume.

So I thought I’d share just a few little inspirations with you. You can find more from the area on my Flickr – including from a long (and exhausting!) walk we took last weekend through some gorgeous rainforest in a ravine not far from home.

Back to the studio

Finally last weekend (which was a long one in Australia) I was able to get back to my jewellery bench, now set up in the studio space in my new home.

Sterling silver blossoms

I spent the weekend completing an order for the National Portrait Gallery shop in Canberra, along with making some urgently needed jewellery for my own supplies seeing as I’ve been badly running out of the jewellery in my shops.

Above are just a few of the little silver blossoms I cut out in sterling silver on the weekend. Each of them were then soaked to remove the paper (with the shape drawn on it), sanded, filed, tumbled and then finally turned into finished jewellery which was then tumbled again.

I seem to spend half of my life making these little blossoms as they form some of the most popular jewellery pieces I sell, so it was no surprise to spend my first weekend of making since moving doing yet more of them!

My jewellery studio.

As for how my new studio is working out, well so far so good! The space is almost fully set up, but there are a few loose ends to tidy up.

The only issue I found on the weekend was that the three large windows let in so much light (in spite of the room being painted so dark) that heating or soldering metal can be difficult because I can’t see what I’m doing! All I need to do is remember to pull a blind or two down before I start and it’s fine, however.

This is not going to be set up as my ‘dream studio’ seeing as I’m still renting and things like fume extraction, heavy equipment which should be bolted to the floor or heavy furniture, etc. are currently out of the question. But soon enough I hope to be working towards just that!

A time for change

I have now moved in to my Blue Mountains cottage with its very pretty garden. There is still a lot of organising to do after the big move, but at least all of the boxes are unpacked and the rooms are each generally serving their intended function.

Flowers from my Blue Mountains garden.
Flowers from my garden.

I feel this is a much-needed fresh start for me in a new place. It remains to be seen how it goes as I settle in and become accustomed to a very different environment to the city.

In the spirit of a time of change I’ve also taken another big step this week, which is to resign from my four day per week job with an organisation I’ve been working for in some capacity for over a decade now. I will be continuing a relationship with them by way of a limited amount of contract work, but this still means I will finally be fully self-employed: something I’ve been working towards for years now.

So it also remains to be seen how that goes! It is a risk, especially given the current economic climate. But I feel that for me the time is right. I very much needed to change how I work and ideally work for fewer hours per week while still bringing in enough income to make ends meet and build a future – something that’s hard to do when working for a tiny non-profit organisation with a huge workload and minimal resources.

As for what I’ll be doing with the freed up time, well there are so many things I could be doing. Every year a myriad of opportunities come my way in relation to my handmade jewellery business as well as the other side of my career – web design and production. Much of the time I’m so busy I struggle to find the time to even get back to people to say I can’t do the work! Hopefully from here on in that will change and I can actually make something of many of these opportunities.

Finally, if you’re interested in seeing my new abode (or at least how it was before I moved in), there are some photographs on my Flickr. Once I feel a bit more sorted out I’ll take some more photos of how it looks now.

Handmade jewellery on the move

Photograph of rose ring.As mentioned in previous blog posts, I’m moving home and heading for the hills.

But it’s not just my personal life that is being impacted by the move as I am also moving my studio and my office, given that I work from home.

So if you’re considering purchasing handmade jewellery from me in the near future, please be aware that currently all items listed in all of my shops are in stock. However, it may take me two to three business days to post your order, particularly between 9 and 18 May.

Also I am now in the process of packing up my studio. This means that if any items are sold out they are unlikely to be remade for several weeks – it’s better to get in quick than risking the item you want being out of stock later.

I am now also unable to undertake any custom work, beyond changing the length and colour of necklaces as indicated in some of my jewellery listings.

But the good news for customers is that when I’m finally set up in my new home I should have two much more functional working spaces, which I’m hoping will lead to being much more efficient. And I’m very much looking forward to being inspired by my beautiful new garden and surroundings!

That’s it! I’m leaving.

Glory tree flower in my new front garden. … Leaving Sydney, that is.

Yes, I finally do have a home to go to after months of looking and will be departing Sydney after over a decade of living here.

But I’m not going far – just up to the Blue Mountains, a bit over an hour’s drive from my current home in Sydney’s inner west.

I’ll be living in a town in the upper Mountains which is close to everything I’d like to be close to up there. Of course living in the country will be a big adjustment, but the Mountains has so many Sydney refugees in it that it’s a bit like an outpost of Sydney and is quite urban in some ways, so it shouldn’t be too much of a shock.

My new home is a mostly wooden cottage which is probably around a hundred years old at a guess. It’s quite large and potentially has a whopping four bedrooms, but I will be using just two as bedrooms – one for me and one for any visitors I may have.

The other two will function as a studio and office respectively. Finally I will have working space which is entirely separated from my living space – and enough room to work a lot more effectively than I do now. Can’t wait!

My new studio will be in a decent sized room with two big windows looking out over the very pretty cottage garden at the front and side of the house. And my new office has one good sized window looking out over the side garden. The photograph above was taken of one of the lovely plants in my new garden-to-be.

The room which will be my bedroom has a beautiful bay window with a seat in it which also looks out onto the pretty front garden. There’s also a big living room with a fire and a decent sized kitchen and dining area, plus a separate laundry. And the bathroom is a big space which has been beautifully done up – it has a big deep bath in it which I’m looking forward to spending lots of time soaking in!

At the back of the house is a garden which is so large I’m going to feel like I’ve suddenly got my own private park! It’s a lovely green space. And someone else will be caring for it, so all I have to do is enjoy it.

The house is going to be a challenge to get looking right as the walls are all painted very bold colours … but luckily I’m up for a challenge on that front!

So now I need to get into moving mode for the first time in a few years. I won’t get the keys for a couple of weeks, but there’s an awful lot to get done in that time, especially given how insanely busy I am even without the move! Keep your fingers crossed that I survive it all in one piece.

Once I’m in and have started to set up my new space I’ll share some photographs with you.

Lost in limbo: an update

Well the acute feeling of being in limbo and wondering if I might be moving house next week or not is over, which is something. But the general sense of limbo goes on: I’m back to house-hunting again!

Yes, the house I mentioned in my last post fell through – believe it or not, the new owners have decided to sell it again rather than renting it out. What a saga!

So I hope to be back up in the Mountains looking at other houses next week. And I have my fingers and toes crossed that very soon I’ll actually know what I’m doing and where I’m going. Can’t wait to be getting on with it.

In the meantime I need to keep getting myself organised to move as soon as it works out – something I’ve been working hard on over the last several weeks anyway.