From the scenic rim on the southern outskirts of Katoomba, the Narrow Neck peninsula juts out for a distance of ten kilometres into the glorious scenic wonderland of the Blue Mountains National Park. The irregular shape of Narrow Neck is caused by two sets of contrasting features - two bulges between Red Ledge / Castle Head and Carlon Head / Cedar Head, and two thin connecting isthmuses, called for convenience "the first narrow neck" and "the second narrow neck". The highest point of the relatively level plateau, Bushwalkers Hill at nearly 1100 metres, is somewhat higher than Katoomba.

The first record of a meaningful white man's presence appears to have been in the late 1800s, when miners blazed a trail out to Clear Hill at the extreme southern tip to prospect for coal and shale below the cliff line. In the early 1900s the Neck was used occasionally in times of drought to agist cattle, but apart from this there was little if any activity.

The peninsula became a political hot potato in the 1930s to 1950s, a period when tourism was being exploited to the fullest by the local authorities, and when the burgeoning bush-walking movement had spawned the first effective conservation group (the National Park and Primitive Areas Council), agitating for the protection of unique natural features such as Narrow Neck. The two forces locked horns in a contest in which. in a way, there was no winner. After a long struggle, the peninsula was saved from local council development, but a fire trail which was peremptorily pushed out as far as Clear Hill about 1960 has remained a visual excrescence ever since. These matters are discussed in Chapter 5.