Missing Gary Tweddle Book Part 12 – PREFACE

 

This is the wild environment associated with this topic we’re talking about here:

View of Sublime Point Leura toward the Jamison Valley below.  [SOURCE:  ^https://www.truebluemountains.com.au/]

It was in the days immediately after Gary Tweddle, apparently some young male corporate IT sales executive, had been last seen at 12:15 am (just after midnight) on Wednesday 17th July 2013 as reported by a motorist driving along Sublime Point Road in nearby Leura.  Then media report came in that just 15 minutes later his mobile went dead and that was last anyone had heard from him.
Bizarre!   Certainly bizarre for the Blue Mountains.
Leura is a country village rather close by to this author in Katoomba situated in the Blue Mountains; their joint adjoining townships situated roughly 100km west of Sydney on a high plateau at around 1000 metres above sea level.  See red-dot icon below.

Relative location of sister towns Katoomba and Leura, 100km west of Sydney, Australia.

For clarity, we wish to firstly point out to readers who are not familiar with the Blue Mountains in Australia, and so not then with Sublime Point in Leura in the Blue Mountains.

We mention this because there happens to be another location somewhat distant away also called Sublime Point Lookout, though that one is situated more than 100km away along the New South Wales coastline well south of Sydney.  See the map below showing the relative different locations of the two.

An online search for ‘Sublime Point Lookout’ results in one or both of the two quite different locations featuring. The one we refer to is the one in the Blue Mountains inland; whereas the other one is by the Illawarra coast, and it best goes by the name Sublime Point Lookout Illawarra.

As a local of The Blue Mountains since 2001, this author has been a local resident/home owner/business owner in the adjacent town to Leura, of Katoomba.

Steve recalls that back in the midst of this very cold winter in 2013, incoming news of the sudden and bizarre disappearance late at night of some corporate conference young 23 year-old male guest who had been staying at well-known local Fairmont 4-star luxury resort hotel.

This sudden unexplained disappearance quickly caught the widespread emotive concerns of many Blue Mountains locals.  Conditions were freezing mid-winter at the time.

So, local immediate search response to find Gary ASAP, before he could perish from almost certain hypothermia, became a shared human instinct and a committed focus.  Led by Police Rescue (Katoomba), with auto-support from allied State Emergency Service volunteers and unconditional support of thousands of other volunteering locals, our local Blue Mountains community galvanised in a massive foot, abseiling and helicopter combined search to find Gary quickly.

It mattered not the cause of Gary’s disappearance, but locals knew that the winter weather being freezing at the time made it imperative to find Gary quickly at all costs ASAP!

This was a Blue Mountains-wide humanitarian mission, and one values sharing this tragic story and dedicated instant local community reaction with readers.  The search for missing Gary actually became the largest missing person search effort in Blue Mountains history in terms of numbers of search personnel contributing.

As media updates about the circumstances and search operating were circulating through the Blue Mountains, this author began capturing a lot of the reported content and collating the missing person story material including a copy of one poster on a street pole.

At the time, Steve also drove at night along Sublime Point Road from the Fairmont to the Sublime Point Lookout car park.  One recalls it was a very dark small highway type road that lead to a dead end on a clifftop headland.  At the car park it was freezing when Steve got out of the car.  No-one was around – no cars.  One knew the area though not in pitch blackness.  It was no time to go hiking in at night without proper kit, solo and in freezing conditions.

[An aside:  Our author then sat in his car at the Sublime Point Lookout car park alone in the remote feeling pitch blackness with no-one around and wound down the car window.

One wanted to sample a tad of Gary’s experience just a week prior.  The search had been called off from finding him alive.  It was freezing, pitch black.  Steve was alone but rugged up in a warm car, but not in the mood for death wish midnight hiking.

Since about 20 years or so prior, in his late 30s with a local bushwalking club group, Steve had climbed up the steep ragged goat track of historic Copeland Pass up the near cliff off the end of Sublime Point Lookout just 175 metres ahead of where one had now parked in the lonely gloom.

Achtung! cliff edge, the 3rd symbol above – been there.  One recalls in 2020 to assisting local residents to get Council put an end to the chronic illegal camping, tree-toileting, camp fires by feral rock-climbers, and its promotion on social media, but that’s another story.

It emerged as an obscure side track from similarly historic and treacherous Lindeman Pass which skirts the Jamison Valley cliff-line half way up for a considerable hiking distance.

Our hike had started from near Kiah Lookout on Cliff Drive near ‘The Rooster’ restaurant down via the Linda Falls hiking track route, but diverting east (with warning signs) before Leura Forest.  (It’s not recommended).

Lindeman Pass (the orange dotted curvy line skirting the Jamison Valley’s cliff escarpment).   [Reference: Tracks – Lindeman Pass, The Jamison (valley) Project, ^https://www.jamisonproject.org/tracks/lindeman-pass ]

Well, we made it only as a group one reckons, since the track route was old and vague, so mandating recent familiar knowledge of the track’s quirks.

One recalls that upon ‘reaching’ Sublime Point Lookout and walking to the car park and beyond that the presence of urban settlement along Sublime Point had invaded as a saturating scourge upon that so wild landscape].

Our author after his above contemplation then drove away slowly and quietly back home, reflecting what had happened to Gary?   In hindsight, on his way back Steve unbeknownst passed within 200 meters of where Gary lay dead and no-one then knew, yet the official search had been just called off, and it was so investigatively logical of where he may likely have been all along.

Lots of evidence would later filter through to put this missing person jigsaw together.  Gary had had no idea of where he was, nor of the surrounding chasm nor of existential risk to his life.

Gary’s disappearance occurred within an hour from where he was staying.  This was not an Agatha Christie style complex twist and turn ‘who-done-it’ mysteries, rather just poor police work, frankly.  His Oracle sale colleagues knew his motive and were last to communicate with him.  The police investigation and missing person search effort should have been a ‘no brainer’ to connect the druggie dots!

In that prior year of 2020, Steve also managed to meet up with a local community group of established residents of Sublime Point Road on a different topic to by happen-chance learn about the circumstances of Gary’s demise.

Just why our interest in this?   Well, two reasons.  One, this particular search became purportedly the largest in Blue Mountains history.   Two, more personally, this author has a nigh twenty year career (1993-2010) in the IT industry in the rough and tumble of corporate Sydney as a Business Analyst and in related roles, and became well familiar of the male dominating corporate bullying culture in this profession, so one has a sense of empathy with Gary’s employment experiences.

Back at the search, at the time back in 2013, more than a thousand Blue Mountains officials and locals were involved trying to find and rescue Gary.  They each deserve an explanation for all their tireless volunteering efforts to search for Gary for weeks and to find some closure to what happened so as to in some address the mental anguish they felt at the time during their search quest under freezing bushland conditions.   No less, as do Gary’s family and loved ones.

Coincidentally, the year 2013 just happened to coincide with Nature Trail first registering as a business, as a commercial tour operator in the Blue Mountains.   During our training, education and preparation for offering various commercial hiking tours, we started to read about stories in the local Blue Mountains gazette newspaper of hiking mishaps by others venturing into the Blue Mountains great outdoors and into remote wilderness areas.

We began to realise the incidences of mishaps in the Blue Mountains ‘great outdoors’ are not as expected occasional, but rather disturbingly so, all too frequent.

We don’t seek out to involve ourselves in tragedies for the sake of it, but moreso to comprehend the causations and to learn from them.  The goal being as a prospective leader delivering outdoor recreation hiking experiences commercially bloody well avoid to the know mistakes of others an so set better practice standards in a learned ongoing way.

Steve holds an extensive analytical background, is a qualified Business Analyst with related tertiary qualifications and a career background as a functional consultant in management accounting, reporting and forensic accounting.   Such background does not qualify us for search and rescue activities, but we can cross-apply our analytics skills to such problem solving.

Tongue in cheek, maybe from our articles and analysis, we ought invoice the NSW Government’s Forensic Medicine and Coroner’s Court for us having done its avoided tasks.

About this Article

This article seeks to be comprehensive about this story which is mostly tragically sad, but also complex, revealing of cultural problems, of systemic failings by officialdom, and is yet another episode of another unnecessary ‘death by misadventure’ in our Blue Mountains.

This article seeks to recognise the backstory through research (online) and by applying ground-truthing – give this author being familiar with the location as a long-time local) and by contributing our insightful analysis with an unbiased desire toward exposing and publicising the untold backstory and truth of what ultimately happened.

This story has turned out to be complex, and frankly rather sad.   The demise of Gary has unique causations, that were not fully disclosed publicly at the time.  It’s why we waited for authorities due time to explain publicly about what happened and why, but they never did.

So, this article attempts to interpret truths behind the media reported tragic story of one visitor to the Blue Mountains, the late Gary Lloyd Tweddle [29 Nov 1989 – 17 July 2013], whom on one freezing winter’s night in 2013 suddenly vanished from work during the course of his workplace compulsory conference staged at a luxury corporate stay on the outskirts of the village of Leura.

Gary Tweddle

Last Minute Timeline to Gary’s Demise:

  1. Gary Tweddle goes to a work dinner at Silks Brasserie in Leura (Blue Mountains) with 45 sales colleagues/management from Oracle (Corporation Australia). The bill is paid at 10.41pm.
  2. Mr Tweddle gets into a Katoomba Leura Radio Cab (taxi) with three work colleagues about 11pm (outside Silks presumably).  He is helped into the taxi and Gary is observed as being unsteady on his feet by the driver.  The sales group is dropped off at the Fairmont Resort (Leura, Blue Mountains).
  3. Several people (Oracle sales team colleagues of Gary’s of the Oracle sales conference) continue to drink in one of the rooms at the (Fairmont) resort. Police say Mr Tweddle only has a few sips of a beer before he leaves to go to the reception/foyer area.  (This contradicts the taxi driver’s account that the oracle sale team with Gary were off their faces, heavily intoxicated/if not drugged by narcotics as well.)
  4. Tweddle runs out of the Fairmont main entrance about midnight. A short time later he rings a colleague and says he is lost. The conversation lasts 17 minutes. Police say it sounds as if he is running and jumping during the conversation.
  5. A car drives past Mr Tweddle as he stands in the middle of Watkins Road talking on his phone at 12.15 am. The car does not stop.
  6. At 12:30 am Mr Tweddle’s (mobile) phone battery dies or is switched off and no one has heard or seen him since.

So, why are we writing about this tragic story?

(1)  Well, because no-one else has thus far done so.  To date and it’s now 2025, more than a decade later.  We hadn’t forgotten, rather just got distracted;  

(2)  Also, because no less of the abrogated moral responsibility by SafeWork NSW.  It states that a ‘workplace‘ is defined by SafeWork NSW as “a place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking.” [^Source].  A workplace is where an employee works for an employer.  Gary was under the employ of Oracle at the time of his disappearance.  He was required by his employer Oracle to attend its sales conference in the Blue Mountains; 

(3)  Also, because many media reports were incorrect and contradictory, and based upon presumptions of ‘guessing journalism’ without first verifing fact checking, such as one news fabrication that Gary’s family had all emigrated from the UK to Australia – no, the family had sadly previously separated.  Gary arrived in Sydney alone;

(4)  Also, because of the lack of any investigative journalism in this case to try get to the backstory and causation of Gary’s bizarre sudden disappearance, of his state of mind from the Oracle sales conference (ultimatum) from the Fairmont Resort and what happened to him around midnight in freezing conditions wearing light clothing; 

 

(5)  Gary’s untimely death has become yet another poorly investigated and unexplained fatality in the Blue Mountains by the responsible NSW government authorities, namely the NSW Forensic Medicine and Coroners Court (yet again) and by SafeWork NSW avoidance (yet again).  Gary was attending a workplace event of his employer Oracle.  We posit that Oracle sales extreme culture contributed mainly to Gary’s mixed substance abuse, anxiety and desperate state of mind whilst employed at its workplace event.  This we explore;

 

(6)  The NSW Coroners Court conducted no inquest, didn’t report its coronial findings. All it said was “death by misadventure”.  So what was the point of the hackneyed meaningless cliché:  “a report will prepared for the coroner” ?  It’s about as silly as saying, “there will be a funeral”.

(7)  Gary’s employer, Oracle Corporation Australia has never made a public statement of any kind about their full-time employee Gary Tweddle, not at the time of his sudden disappearance from its sales work conference, nor during the massive search for him, nor once Gary’s body had been found and recovered, nor at his funeral.   What an uncaring employer!   This author has repeated experienced such uncaring management behaviour toward employees/contractors like himself repeatedly from Corporate IT Sydney firms (1993-2010) from well-known large corporates, government departments and IT consulting firms alike.  It is an uncaring ruthless corporate culture.

(8)  So how can folk involved in the Blue Mountains great outdoors learn from such tragedies to try to best avoid repeats?   This is why we critique on such.  No one else in charge seems to do so or give a damn.  But we do as a professional tour operator.  We’ve taken an interest in learning from the mishaps/tragedies of others who have lost their lives in the great outdoors of the Blue Mountains wild region.   We’ve had forced time to contemplate such during the pandemic lockdown regime.  

We have realised that few take the same concern about the sad unnecessary loss of visitors to our wild region.  We have realised that there continues to be no lessons learned by our field craft ‘Outdoor Recreation/Hiking/Touring’ et al. to so improve the safety standards and education to those seeking ‘fun‘ in our great outdoors.

Each deserves such fun, but pre-informed/pre-warned of the risks to life, so that each gets that fun safely and returns to their family alive.  Frankly, else what the point of reckless ‘outdoorsie’ fun resulting in another death by misadventure again?  

By publishing we’re happy to take all criticism, and we reject repeated demands of censorship.  We do not have any ulterior motive but to reveal the truth of this awful tragedy and waste of lives and to expose the fact that deaths by misadventure perpetuate in the Blue Mountains (an elsewhere) yet society is not learning any wisdom to help reduce repeat occurrences, rather treats these as “freak” events, but they are definitely not.   One observed that such tragedies in the Blue Mountains sadly tend to happen all to frequently.

 

Anyone is free to blog their own blog, but not to try to censor free speech, particularly that which seeks to expose the truth about what is wrongly happening repeatedly in our Blue Mountains World Heritage Area tragically time and again.

The NSW government’s extravagant $91.5 million state-of-the-art Forensic Medicine and Coroner’s Court officially opened in Lidcombe (new Sydney) in December 2018.  It was relocated from Glebe (old Sydney), but the same old bad culture accompanied the move – no inquest reports get released to the public.
So a useless white elephant.

This particularly long article is a dedication to the memory of the late Gary Lloyd Tweddle.  We hope we give his story justice.

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