Blue Pool near Glenbrook

Blue Pool near Glenbrook

Located in the eastern part of the Blue Mountains National Park, the "Blue Pool" is a mildly famous tourist attraction, approx. 2km from Glenbrook railway station.

It's supposedly "blue" because of a colloidal dispersion of clay in the water. The day I was there however, it was far more green than blue. Keeping in mind the thousand-year drought afflicting the east-coast of Australia, perhaps calling it "Blue-Green Algae Pool" would have been more appropriate.

You can see another impact of the drought in the cracked mud on the creek bank, a metre above where I stood. Before the rains failed, all this used to be deep under water…

Scene notes

The image was taken at almost the Winter Solstice, at 11:50am on Tuesday 21st of June. Unfortunately I couldn't wait the extra 10mins because I had to run for the midday train (well - puff, stumble and groan… see below).

Getting there

According to many sites, the pool is "an easy walk" from the station. Don't you believe it. Although horizontally the distance is only 1.5km, vertically you have to descend forever into a deep, dark valley at the bottom of the world. Consequently, coming back out Is Something Else.

If that isn't bad enough, the track expires 100m before the actual pool, so you're bashing bushes and stumbling & bumbling over slippery, car-sized boulders. See how many times a fall can knock the camera from your hands (twice), or how many times you slip waist-deep into freezing water (only once, but it was spectacular). Meanwhile you're running out of sun, which keeps hiding behind clouds anyway, trashing your VR exposure consistency…

Slippery boulders, freezing water, dropped cameras, a track gradient so big a downer that even Judy Garland would balk…

Clearly I've got to find an easier way to relax.

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Australia - New Zealand / Australia

Lat: 34° 47' 30" S
Long: 150° 37' 5" E

Elevation: ~150m

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.

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