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

canyon A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, 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 t ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, north-west of

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

that is noted to be the widest canyon in the world, exceeding the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon Nati ...

. It is located kilometres north-west of Sydney, between Lithgow and

Mudgee Mudgee () is a town in the Central West (New South Wales), Central West of New South Wales, Australia. It is in the broad fertile Cudgegong River valley north-west of Sydney and is the largest town in the Mid-Western Regional Council Local gov ...

, 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 Central West and Hunter region of New South Wales, in eastern Australia. The park, the second largest national park in New South Wales, conta ...

Geology

The valley follows the Capertee River as it cuts through the

Sydney Basin The Sydney Basin is an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, 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 ...

, 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 subsidence ...

consisting of

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), 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 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

and

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock formed by the cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or deposited at Earth's surface. Sedime ...

rock west of the Blue Mountains. Sandstone cliffs and

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

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 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 table (landform), tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from the French l ...

that is now part of the Gardens of Stone National Park. 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 The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, a ...

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. The holes allow the pigment to reach only some parts of the surface creatin ...

led hands,

boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool typically constructed with airfoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight, designed to return to the thrower. The origin of the word is from Australian Aborigin ...

s and throwing sticks. Pantonys Crown

European

The canyon was first crossed by English explorer James Blackman in 1821. In the 1840s,

sheep farming Sheep farming or sheep husbandry is the raising and breeding of domestic sheep. It is a branch of animal husbandry. Sheep are raised principally for their meat (lamb and mutton), milk (sheep's milk), and fiber (wool). They also yield sheepskin ...

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. It prov ...

paths and dray tracks from Nulla Mountain to

Putty PuTTY () is a free and open-source terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw socket connection. It can also connect to a se ...

. From 1851, the Australian gold rush 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 Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

, shale-oil 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 The Glen Davis Shale Oil Works was a shale oil extraction plant, in the Capertee Valley, at Glen Davis, New South Wales, Australia, which operated from 1940 until 1952. It was the last oil shale in Australia, oil-shale operation in Australia, unt ...

, a

shale oil extraction Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil is used as fuel oil or ...

. The village became a rest stop for travellers to

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 period ...

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

bushranger Bushrangers were armed robbers and outlaws who resided in The bush#Australia, the Australian bush between the 1780s and the early 20th century. The original use of the term dates back to the early years of the British colonisation of Australia ...

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 (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

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 i ...

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 Int ...

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, inv ...

regent honeyeater. It also supports populations of the painted honeyeater, rockwarbler, swift parrot, plum-headed finch and diamond firetail. 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'' (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