Cannot enter Time Machine hosted on ReadyNAS Pro from Lion

I started and completed a new backup of my Macbook running Mac OS 10.7.1 to the ReadyNAS Pro Business running 4.2.18 after having moved the previous Time Machine backup sparse bundle to another location on my ReadyNAS Pro Business.

I can now “Enter Time Machine” backup, but strangely enough, I can enter it regardless of my network connection. Even if I disconnect from the network, I can still “Enter Time Machine.” Because in Lion, versions are somehow tied to Time Machine, I am beginning to think that being able to “Enter Time Machine” with the network connection down is a new feature in Lion. I can see Time Machine backups with the time stamps when I was at work with my Macbook, which means that my Macbook could not have made any real Time Machine backups at those times. I am not sure what those backups are. Perhaps in Lion, Time Machine continues to make backup snapshots locally and then transfers them to the sparsebundle on the NAS (or Time Capsule) next time it is on the same LAN as they are. Or, perhaps, those are the locally stored “versions” that are not transferred to the Time Machine sparsebundle and to which Time Machine has now access to. The reason I think these are versions is the fact that I can be in an application (like Mail) and after entering Time Machine (with the network connection down), I remain in Mail and can navigate through the timeline of “backups” and see a different number of messages in Mail, depending on a particular “backup”. All of this occurs with the network connection down.

I do not recall this being a possibility in previous versions of Mac OS X. Specifically, I do not recall being able to “Enter Time Machine” when not connected to the same LAN where my NAS was, and neither do I recall being able to remain in any application once having entered Time Machine. The only application available at that point was Finder-like interface, which allowed to restore a file from the Time Machine backup or delete a file completely from the Time Machine backup.

Could someone please shed some light on this new phenomenon? I would love to learn more about this new functionality of Time Machine. I would also like to know if the true Time Machine backups are stored on my ReadyNAS in the Time Machine sparsebundle in case I need to restore my Macbook after an HD failure. Because I can now “Enter Time Machine” without even being connected to the network, I do not know how to tell if there are real and usable (for restore) backups in the sparsebundle on my ReadyNAS.