Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The Blue Mountains
We headed up to the Blue Mountains today on a little day trip. The Mountains have the name, because the Eucalypts (that make up between 80 and 90% of the trees) have leaves that essentially gas off eycalyptus oils that are slightly blue. As you look at the mountains from a distance, the mountains have a slightly bluish tinge from the airborn oils. While this makes for a beautiful vista, it also proves explosive when fire breaks out. The interesting thing is that some trees in the forest NEED fire to produce seeds and many will grow back extremely quickly after being burned--it stimulates growth.
The mountains were created when all the continents were one single land mass. This makes for highly worn down mountains, but there are huge cuts through the mountains which, presumably, were sliced by glaciers.
It was a beautiful day.
