Turned to stone

The Three Sisters sandstone formations stand next to one another, reaching up to touch the sky, looking out over the Jamison Valley and are surrounded by an infinity of mountain ranges in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. The Sisters are called Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo and there are at least two Aboriginal legends about how they came to be.

According to one, the sisters from the Katoomba Aboriginal tribe fell in love with three brothers from the rival Nepean tribe. The brothers wouldn't accept the tribal law that forbade them to marry and abducted the sisters. Conflict broke out. A witch-doctor turned the sisters to stone to protect them from harm. Before he could turn them back to human form, the witch doctor died, forever sealing the sisters' fate.

In another legend, the father of the three sisters turned them to stone, once again as a means of protecting them while he went in search of food. He turned himself into a lyre bird but ended up dropping his magic bone and because of that, was unable to return the sisters to their former selves.

Apparently, even in the present time, a lyre bird can be seen flying around the Three Sisters in search of the magic bone.

Stuart invited me to stayed with him for a night at Lilianfels in Echo Point, a stately old estate. We went for a drive to the next village called Leura but before that walked to the viewing point to see the Sisters. The fierce afternoon summer sun lit them up in beautiful hues of amber, gold and pink and they looked majestic standing amidst the dense greenery and shade of the mountains.

We went back at night to see the Sisters floodlit surrounded by the night's cloak of blackness.

The next morning we went for a different walk along the trail. There were bronze sculptures along the way of the lyre bird, echidnas and frilled neck lizards.

We climbed down the steep stairs to get to the footbridge that goes up to the first sister (which can be seen in the photo). We walked across and sat for a few moments on a bench in the crevice, hundreds of metres above the forest bed below.