[bbfan1991]

Living life on the edge, this young couple are perilously perched above a 240m (800ft) drop.

The pair had carefully crawled right to the end of Australian landmark Hanging Rock, where the sandstone is only a few centimetres wide.

Photographer Michael Matthews was amazed to see the duo so far out on the narrow rock formation, overlooking the Grose River Gorge in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. He said: ‘They even had a hug and a kiss out there but were being extremely careful.’

Matthews, 54, had driven from his home in Sydney, having seen an image of the Hanging Rock on a postage stamp. ‘I decided that I had to see it for myself,’ he said.

Matthews reached a viewpoint known as Baltzers Lookout but still couldn’t see the landmark – which shares its name with another Australian feature made famous by the book Picnic At Hanging Rock: ‘I felt quite vulnerable up there. There were no fences and a wind was blowing. I felt it would be easy to get blown off the cliff if you got too close to the edge.’

Of the couple, he said: ‘I had a sickly feeling in my stomach and a real fear of seeing them fall. They would never have survived the drop.’