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Category: London

Cutty Sark and Gipsy Moth legends

April 26, 2026 London, Tour Yarns

In 2024, Nature Trail’s Tour Director Steven Ridd with family, travelled afar, indeed to old England; not for the first time but. One’s ancestry is 100% British Isles – actually from all five countries within and pre-Norman Conquest (1066 AD) and the pre-Dane Invasion of Britain (793 AD). The old English surname ‘Ridd’ is Anglo-Saxon centred around Tawstock in North […]

Tel: +61 2 4782 1300

Nature Trail is a nonprofit tour operator – we dont charge a cent for our tours

In 2025, Tour Director Steve decided to convert the Blue Mountains based tour business Nature Trail into a nonprofit organisation. We were never about profit making from the outset anyway, but rather about sharing our insights of the Blue Mountains where we live and getting out and about and away from our otherwise webdesign work. We don't employ staff and we don't accept donations.

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Nature Trail’s tour operation has been shut down by bullying Chris Minns Labor

The NSW Minns Labor Government has tried to extort $110,000 from Blue Mountains recently launched tour operator and local, Nature Trail.

As if the Service NSW's extortionate clawback (2023-2024) against legitimate, approved and vindicated Nature Trail of its 2021 COVID-19 Micro Business Grant wasn't criminal enough?

It's unbelievable government hate against small business, like bureaucrats are indoctrinated with AI dodge to perceive that all private entrepreneurial small business owners somehow are all friggen millionaires, ripe for the taxing!

Nature Trail has been forced by NSW Government to become a benevolent tour operator

Nature Trail in 2018 commercially launched as a startup tour operator optimistically after five years of preparation - education, qualifications, training and operational design.

Yet despite our extensive due diligence, unexpectedly we subsequently copped NSW Government lockdowns (bushfire/pandemic), thereafter its increasing costly read tape and the grant extortion imposts .

So, we have reflected on all this political intimidation undermining our tour initiative and viability. Under such unviable imposition, as from July 2025 Nature Trail has decided for the time being to operate as a benevolent tour operation venture.

In this strategic way, we become non-commercial, reject any revenue, and healthily free ourselves of governmental authoritarian imposts, red tape, compliance regulations, costly and extortionate fees and relieve all the stress that goes along with it. Nature Trail rather has always been about just sharing our insight about habitat, and never about revenue, profit motives nor needless compliance, nor governmental bureaucratic over-reach.

Thus, all our tours are currently free and we liken this to a karma of Nature. Nature Trail has become an Emeritus Tour Operator. It's because we just like what we do and we've at no time ever sought profit, just breakeven so to pay governmental red tape.

Many of our competitors have since gone broke under the NSW government's tourism compliance red tape regime.

Our stolen logo for some governmental concept ‘Grand Cliff Top Walk’

Our widowed bird - her soul mate having been 1080 poisoned by Parks Service and shown in ghostly entrails. So sad. Nature Trail in mid-2025 is currently reconnoitring a recently upgraded trail. By clicking on this photo, you can follow our progress and critiques. Both our reconnoitring and critiques remain works in progress, thus far, just like this half baked trail.

Nature Trail logo mate poisoned by Blue Mountains Council

Our business logo since 2018

Sails Restaurant (Lavender Bay) worst booking experience ever

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Blue Mountains hiking tragedy of Andre Márquez – January 2026

The Blue Mountains largest ever missing person search – at the time

[NOTE: We're getting close to announcing 'ARTICLE COMPLETE'. If interested, follow our current drafting of: Part-25 Chapter 12: Sydney: World's cocaine capital?
Thanks. ]

Methanol Party Tourism – one sip and you’re in a box home

Fiji Pina Coladas are a deadly cocktail

Our ‘Mountains Drums’ website magazine

‘Mountains Drums’ – articles

Nature Trail denied trade by the NSW Government

NOTICE: We wish to notify potential customers that since 2019, the local New South Wales Government has imposed mandatory lockdown restrictions upon our tour business ‘Nature Trail’. For instance, 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.

Nature Trail Films

Our most recent endeavour is to start making films of our tours and other magazine topics concerning the Blue Mountains region. To this end, Nature Trail started by creating a new YouTube channel on 28th January 2025. Early days, with so far just one short simple experimental video while we were holidaying in Milford South New Zealand. Watch this space, however any new video we publish will be posted to the front page right-side column of Nature Trail's website - under this title: 'Nature Trail Films'.

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We recommend: ‘Mountains Tales’ guided personal walking tours of Leura, Katoomba, and Mount Victoria

Minnehaha Falls plunge pool

Fancy a cool dip under this waterfall?

The Best of the Blue Mountains and Beyond

Tour to Country Fair: ‘Daffodil Country Gardens’

Sat 7th September 2019

Nature Stories

Link to book review

Friends of Nature Trail

We extend our gratitude to the Friends of Nature Trail for their individual support, giving up their personal time to participate pro-bono on our practice trips for each tour. It's so that we first test and finetune our tours to a high standard before offering a tour commercially.