Missing Gary Tweddle Book Part 29 – AUTHOR BIO

May 3, 2025

(1) Steven John Ridd (at age 61)

Steven Ridd CPL(H), BBus(Mgt), DipOutRec(Hons), DipProjMgt in the context of this web-book is Tour Director of Nature Trail. Nature Trail is a trading entity of Wistmans Wood Trust [ABN 51 965 308 493] registered in Australia with A.S.I.C. since 10th December 2013.

As for Steve, you can read more about his background and credentials on this website: >https://naturetrail.com.au/home/our-credentials/

This is Steven’s first ‘web-book’ in this format, however he has written and published ‘Pulpit Hill [1813-2013] A Nomination for Heritage Recognition’ (245 pages in PDF, 2011), ‘The Pulpit Post’ community newsletter (2006-2008), written and published over 400 online articles on The Habitat Advocate (conservation consultancy) website, had 150 letters to the editor published in the local Blue Mountains Gazette, as well as having written over 2800 articles on various political websites under different pseudonyms.

Steven’s career background spans tourism, a stint at Duntroon, transport, sales, shipping, aviation, management, corporate accounting, business analysis, business software consulting and webdesign.

Since 2014, Steven has been managing director of Wistmans Wood Holdings Pty Limited, which is the corporate trustee for a number of unconnected trading entities including Talbot Analysis, Nature Trail, The Habitat Advocate.

(2) So, why this author, on this particularly tragic story?

This is a true story which occurred in the Blue Mountains of Australia where this author lives in the regional township of Katoomba and has done so since 2001. This author Steven Ridd (‘Steve’ is fine) lives about 4 km of where this tragic incident occurred.

Up front, this author did not personally know Gary Tweddle, nor even of Gary. Rather, this story about this – yet another ‘missing person’ in our neck of the woods in Katoomba was first learned by this author off the local Blue Mountains ‘grapevine’ the same day – Wednesday 17th July 2013.

This case well may have occurred back in 2013, currently some 12 years ago; yet the scenario of lost visitors to our Blue Mountains perpetuates. The sad trauma resonates with this author as being a tour operator in the Blue Mountains, frequently reading about recurring tragedies in the Blue Mountains ‘great outdoors’. Most are preventable. Also, different visitors repeat the same mistakes. Also, there are no lessons being learned nor cumulative wisdom being gained to mitigate repeat tragedies, near misses and avoidable mishaps by local authorities and the Outdoor Recreation ‘industry’ alike. (‘outdoor fraternity might be a more apt term that ‘industry’ – no factories in the Blue Mountains).

So, one shakes his head when another such event occurs locally, namely:

Missing Hikers
Mountains Injuries
Mountains Rescues
Deaths in the Mountains (like this one)
Other misadventures

Others of the outdoor recreation ‘craft’ detachedly shun curiosity, dare a sense of scrutiny, about all these recurring ‘outdoor’ incidents and tragedies; so preferring to passively await the cliched ‘coroner’s inquest and report’…that never comes. This author takes an active analytical interest out of one’s career background.

It is not a macabre interest; rather it’s to learn from such events so as to garner lessons to better mitigate the risks of what we do as an outdoor tour operator.

This author, Steve, as founder and Tour Director of Nature Trail) here sitting safely back from a cliff ledge at remote Bellbird Point somewhat south of Dunphy’s Campground, Megalong undertaking a tour reccie trip 12th Nov 2017 with Nature Trail’s Trekking Alumni this round with Phil, Jan and Flex. Shown here on a side-track whilst heading towards Myles Dunphy’s wilderness named ‘Kelpie Point’ on the Cox’s River. We reckon that Myles had admired dogs and dingos. Check GPS co-ordinates [-33.798648, 150.228278] ^https://maps.app.goo.gl/hoqeTuM3QmGjMFtJ9 –

(3) So, why has this author been distracted from his Nature Trail tour operation to this literary blog?

Steve, after years of planning, training, preparing and practising (from 2012 to 2019) , then experiencing governmental red tape, he chose to commercially launched his Nature Trail tour operation on Saturday 2nd September 2019 with a small gathering of close friends at his Katoomba home base.

Blue Mountains tourism was booming at the time. With business marketing having been disseminated for the previous two months, Nature Trail then started taking tour enquiries and secured tour bookings within weeks in the seasonal lead up to the regular busy visitation summer tourist season for our Blue Mountains. Our business launch timing was not co-incidental.

So our trial commercial tours commenced, albeit with a few more red-tape hurdles still to be overcome – such as pending a NPWS Eco-Pass registration, and our newly acquired commercial 4WD registration.

However, all that went pear shaped in November 2019, the local New South Wales Government has imposed mandatory lockdown restrictions upon our tour business ‘Nature Trail’.

It started with the NSW Government’s abject failure to extinguish the Gospers Mountain pile burn from Saturday 26th October 2019, but allowing it to ultimately incinerate the entire Wollomi National Park 5,017 km² through its Parks Service and Rural Fire Service agencies. This was allowed to spread and rage into the adjoining Blue Mountains National Park 60km south. This was coupled with simultaneous wildfires through Green Wattle Greek, Kanangra Boyd, and Nattai Wilderness national parks, etc. All up the NSW Government oversaw as much as 80% of our Blue Mountains World Heritage Area incinerated.

Nature Trail’s naturally wild asset attraction was suddenly destroyed within 3 months by its supposed government custodian, NPWS (no more than a lawn mowing parks service in our book).

Blue Mountains World Heritage up in flames!- nothing of value left to see. Tourism in mandatory lockdown in perpetuity. Nature Trail’s business strategy due diligence could not have foreseen such a cataclysmic ruination of our business model of 2013.

The NSW Government’s state-wide emergency declaration lockdown imposed a blanket legal socio-economic lockdown across New South Wales. It’s rolling lockdowns would extend continually for the next four years straight.

This bushfire disaster was followed back-to-back in Feb 2020 by forecast torrential rains causing impassable landslips that blocked vital road and rail for weeks. Then back-to-back the NSW Government 3-year Chinavirus pandemic mandatory lockdown (Feb 2020 – Nov 2022).

Not long after all that lockdown and government extortion drama, in April 2023 Nature Trail was then threatened by the NSW Government to repay it $15,214 pandemic compensation grant. Nature Trail fought and finally won that extortionate attempt in April 2024, after a year’s political campaigning.

(4) The NSW Government’s ongoing lockdown of Nature Trail

That same month in April 2024, Nature Trail was then again threatened with a $110,000 fine by another NSW Government’s Transport for NSW sub-department – the ludicrously named new Point to Point Transport Commissioner (P2P), from a phone call out-of-the-blue on 15th April 2024.

Apparently, some public servant had visited Nature Trail’s website and seen an image of our tour vehicle.

In the lead up to Nature Trail’s commercial launch, Steve in 2018 had duly registered his tour vehicle with the NSW Government for transporting paying passengers on its planned commercial tours (mainly for complimentary transfers to hiking destinations) and had been duly approved.

But once the NSW Government lockdowns shut down the state economy particularly Blue Mountains tourism, Nature Trail was so denied customers.

Yet that same NSW Government insisted that Nature Trail pay it an annual fee of $500 just to be registered to transport passengers, despite that same government imposing a blanket trading ban, a ban on our transporting anyone and banning all tourist visitation to the Blue Mountains, else cop a $5000 on the spot fine.

A bureaucractic case of the NSW Government wanting its cake and eating it too.

So, it made no sense to pay the government’s levy whilst simultaneously them imposing perpetually lockdown. So, we cancelled the P2P registration claiming genuine financial hardship.

Further, we did the NSW Government’s compliance sums again, which we had initially done as a due diligence exercise back in in 2012, before we decided to proceed with setting up our commercial tour operation. But the fees had all gone up by 2020. We now calculated that for Nature Trail to legally take one (or none) single paying guest into a national park in NSW, our business upfront compliance overheads are AUD$5,500 per annum!

Such onerous governmental red tape costs continue to deny Nature Trail any viable opportunity to trade as a commercial tour operator into national parks in New South Wales.

Consequently, after much consternation, from 2025, with no hope of governmental flexibility toward startup businesses like ourselves, Nature Trail has pragmatically decided to strategically shift away from its tour business, to offering tour videos.

This means that we shall instead be focusing hereon on just filming our various tours and posting them on YouTube.

7th June 2025.

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