A million and a half acres of pine on sand, where a three-hundred-year-old legend of Mother Leeds's thirteenth child persists. In 1735, the story goes, she said in temper that the child could be the devil — and the newborn turned into a winged thing with hooves and a horse's head, went up the chimney, and has been here since. In January 1909 it was reported across the state for a solid week; schools closed, and tracks were found in the snow on rooftops.

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The Blue Mountains and the Yowie

The range west of Sydney, where Aboriginal peoples described a large hairy creature long before colonisation and settlers began writing about it from the 1790s. The Yowie is described in almost the same terms as the North American Sasquatch. The mountains really do smoke blue — that is eucalyptus oil vapour scattering the light, not a legend.