The Capertee Valley (pronounced Kay-per-tee) is a large

canyon A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cu ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

, north-west of

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

that is noted to be the second widest of any canyon in the world, exceeding The Grand Canyon. It is located kilometres north-west of Sydney, between Lithgow and Mudgee, in the Central Tablelands, just above the Blue Mountains. The only population centre of any kind is the village of Glen Davis, which includes a camp-site and often serves as a starting point for bushwalks around the Capertee River and other parts of the

Wollemi National Park The Wollemi National Park () is a protected national park and wilderness area that is located in the northern Blue Mountains and Lower Hunter regions of New South Wales, in eastern Australia. The park, the second largest national park in New ...

Geology

The valley follows the Capertee River as it cuts through the

Sydney Basin The Sydney Basin is an interim Australian bioregion and is both a structural entity and a depositional area, now preserved on the east coast of New South Wales, Australia and with some of its eastern side now subsided beneath the Tasman Sea ...

, a

sedimentary basin Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock. They form when long-term subsiden ...

consisting of

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleo ...

and

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest per ...

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

rock west of the Blue Mountains. Sandstone cliffs and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

formations predominate the escarpment, which descend into a deep chasm sculpted into the environment over millions of years. One of the most prominent features of the valley is Pantony's Crown, a sandstone

butte __NOTOC__ In geomorphology, a butte () is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from a French word me ...

that is now part of the

Gardens of Stone National Park The Gardens of Stone National Park is a protected national park that is located in the Central Tablelands region of New South Wales in eastern Australia. The national park is situated northwest of Sydney, and northwest of . The national pa ...

. Capertee Valley is only 1 kilometre wider than the Grand Canyon, but not as deep.

History

Aboriginal

The original inhabitants of the land surrounding the valley are the Aboriginal Wiradjuri people, as shown by the 2,000-year-old rock art in the area which feature

stencil Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface, by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object, to create a pattern or image on a surface, by allowing the pigment to reach ...

led hands,

boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning ...

s and throwing sticks. Pantonys Crown

European

The canyon was first crossed by English explorer James Blackman in 1821. In the 1840s, sheep farming in the area produced quality wool. The area is patterned with old bush tracks,

bridle A bridle is a piece of equipment used to direct a horse. As defined in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the "bridle" includes both the that holds a bit that goes in the mouth of a horse, and the reins that are attached to the bit. Headgea ...

paths and dray tracks from Nulla Mountain to

Putty Putty is a material with high plasticity, similar in texture to clay or dough, typically used in domestic construction and repair as a sealant or filler. Although some types of putty (typically those using linseed oil) slowly polymerise and be ...

. From 1851, the

Australian gold rush During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of N ...

increased the colony's population where the Capertee Village developed from small accommodation inns. The area's wealth and value grew as

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

shale-oil Shale oil is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale rock fragments by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock (kerogen) into synthetic oil and gas. The resulting oil ca ...

and

were discovered and mined there. In 1882, the railway was established, in addition to new homes, inns, a post office and the Glen Davis Shale Oil Works, a shale oil extraction. The village became a rest stop for travellers to Mudgee due to the good

water supply Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. Th ...

in the area.

Henry Lawson Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial perio ...

mentions the valley in his 1891 poem ''Song of the Old Bullock Driver''. In 1920s,

bushranger Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up " robbery unde ...

s hid their stolen cattle in the valley. The valley gained importance in the 1930s for its immense geological deposits that laid beneath it and an

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

hotel was constructed.

Birds

The valley is classified by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Inte ...

because it is the most important breeding site for the

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

regent honeyeater. It also supports populations of the painted honeyeater, rockwarbler, swift parrot,

plum-headed finch The plum-headed finch (''Aidemosyne modesta'') also known as cherry finch is a common species of estrildid finch found in Australia. It is the only species placed in the genus ''Aidemosyne''. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 1 ...

and

diamond firetail The diamond firetail (''Stagonopleura guttata'') is a species of estrildid finch that is endemic to Australia. It has a patchy distribution and generally occupies drier forests and grassy woodlands west of the Great Dividing Range from South E ...

. In the US published book ''Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die'', author Chris Santella lists Capertee Valley as one of only two locations in Australia selected in his top 50 world bird watching locations.

Literary references

refers to "the wild beauty" of the Capertee area in his poem 'Song of the Old Bullock-Driver', written in 1891 and published in ''

Verses, Popular and Humorous ''Verses, Popular and Humorous'' (1900) was the second collection of poems by Australian poet Henry Lawson. It was released in hardback by Angus and Robertson publishers in 1900. It features some of the poet's earlier major works, including "Th ...

'' (1900). The lines read: ::We saw the wild beauty of Capertee Valley, :::As slowly we rounded the base of the Crown. "The Crown" is a reference to Blackman's Crown, a prominent outcrop on the Crown Ridge south of Capertee village, named after the explorer and pastoralist James Blackman. In June 1874 an anonymous writer provided the following description of the view at sunrise on the road which winds around the Crown Ridge: ::I enjoyed the fresh bracing air at the Crown, and the next morning was up at sunrise. A little over a mile from the hotel the road winds round the Crown Ridge, and as I ascended there opened to view a truly marvellous picture. To those who love the glories of light and shade, of boundless extent, magnificence of scenery, beauty and sublimity, I would recommend a view at sunrise or sunset over the valley of Capertee. Along the lowest range or tiers of hills, a thousand feet below there is a sombre shade; higher up a lighter tinge almost approaching green; and then above the great peaks the natural towers of rocks and battlement stretching miles away are gloriously bathed in golden sheen.'A Tour to the North-Western Interior: Wallerawang to Mudgee', ''Australian Town and Country Journal'', 27 June 1874, page 28.

References

External links

{{Commons category
Glen Davis & the Capertee Valley
Central Tablelands Valleys of Australia Landforms of New South Wales Canyons and gorges of Australia Rock formations of New South Wales Tourist attractions in New South Wales Birdwatching sites in Australia Important Bird Areas of New South Wales