Leura Village is a famous hub for visitors to the Blue Mountains to quality shop and dine and to enjoy the village’s relaxed country leafy charm. A vital asset is Leura Garage Café Restaurant Bar which for over a decade since first opening in 2011 has been one of the Blue Mountains most popular eateries. Yet, on January 25 in […]
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Since Wednesday 9th November 2022, Wolgan Road has been closed due to heavy rainfall along the road pass below the Wolgan Valley Lookout, causing a number of landslips making the main road access in and out of Wolgan Valley impassable. That was more than two months ago. The Wolgan Valley is situated just about 30km north of the western Blue […]
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Bushfire disaster destroying the Blue Mountains World heritage ecology by government neglect then decreeing a blanket shut down of all visitation was just the start from 10th November 2019. It was the worst carbon particulate pollution event in New South Wales history, perhaps for millennia. This was immediately followed the China coronavirus global pandemic and the abject failures of […]
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The village of Mt Victoria is struggling to survive post bushfires, floods and coronavirus pandemic and desperately needs new highway tourism signs to encourage people to stop and visit the village. Blue Mountains City Council Ward 1 Liberal Cr Kevin Schreiber expressed concerns for the village of Mt Victoria back in March at the council meeting. He understood only about […]
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For perhaps the past decade or so our family, friends and neighbours around Katoomba have specially selected to travel to dine at the rustic Ambermere Inn. This historic and restored colonial inn is situated at the highway hamlet of Little Hartley, which is just a 20km drive from Katoomba westward and descending 600 metres down the Pass of Victoria off the […]
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Popes Glen Bushland Reserve is located on the eastern bushland outskirts of the village of Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, which is situated about 110km due west of Sydney’s CBD. This reserve re-opened in March 2022 after more than two years of being closed off to the travelling public by a New South Wales state government emergency decree. This governmental […]
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The government pandemic lockdown has taken another tourist business victim in the Blue Mountains – Blue Mountains Explorer Bus. Managing director of the company which owns and operates domestic tour and coach company Fantastic Aussie Tours, Jason Cronshaw, said his fleet is not sustainable without international visitors. Yet international visitors have been banned by the Australian Government since March 2020, and […]
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The harbinger to a year of calamity started at 10.17pm on Wednesday 7th August 2019 when a 1.9 magnitude quake struck Katoomba. Many of the reports came from Katoomba and Leura but there were others from nearby Wentworth Falls and Hazelbrook. The tremor brought back local memories of previous quakes. The last one in the Blue Mountains Region was on […]
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Twenty years in the Blue Mountains region and I have been planning my own business, even before then. Business planning is ongoing so as to cope with changes, like unemployment. I have recently joined Lithgow Tourism, being a tour operator based in nearby Katoomba, with a key focus on encouraging visitors to the Lithgow Region from Blue Mountains stays. Like […]
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Blue Mountains tourism particularly local tour operators such as myself have continued to suffer financial losses from the dearth of visitation since December 2019. Communities entrust government to respond to emergencies like bushfires; yet outside urban centres, World Heritage ecology and rural communities are treated like second class citizens. Government ‘she’ll be right’ bushfire policy of ‘Advice’, escalating invariably ‘Emergency […]
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Here we go again… Bushfires lockdown the entire Blue Mountains The widespread bushfire ‘mega-blaze‘ disaster of Christmas 2019 that was mishandled and allowed to rage and spread over two months, ended up destroying 80 percent of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area as well as many other natural regions of New South Wales. Dubbed by our sister conservation entity […]
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For the past five years I have invested in a start-up tour operation based in Katoomba in the heart of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Tour operators will be well aware of the qualification courses, the business setup and compliance costs before government allows you to step one foot commercially into a ‘national’ park. So tour vehicle purchased, equipped […]
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