This 19+km trek is officially promoted equivalent to a proverbial ‘walk in the park’ as being do-able in just 2-days… like ‘easy peasy’? Yet, from our on-ground hiking experience of this trail, it seriously is anything but! The (NPWS) Parks Service’s March 2024 public opening launch of its new concept ‘Grand Cliff Top Walk‘ in the Australian Blue Mountains, […]
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This is a recent concept trail of 20+km in length, and is an amalgamation of many shorter popular hiking tracks, some being historic. In our current critique (2025) we break this back into manageable segments approximating a half-day each, for flexibility and to divide up our critique into readable articles rather than as a web-book. We offer positives and negatives […]
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Some 120km west of Sydney and at 1052 metres above sea level, Mount Victoria on the western escarpment is the highest and last village of the Central Blue Mountains before the road heads down the pass into the verdant valleys beyond. It is a charming Victorian village with heritage architecture dating back to the 1840s. It’s One Tree Hill at […]
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From time to time as the seasons entice, Nature Trail ventures beyond the Blue Mountains west into the pastoral and historic Central West Region of New South Wales, like on this occasion. We arrive in spring and high altitude Oberon’s fickle weather is luckily sunny for us today. Mayfield Garden is 13 km outside the old logging town of Oberon, […]
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Grand tour this one, so we get an early start at 7am. We explore what Shipley Plateau has to offer west of Blackheath, plus the entire length of the Megalong. ‘Megalong’ is Aboriginal for ‘valley under the cliff’ – Narrowneck’s ancient and magisterial sandstone escarpment. Locals have long balked at the tautology of ‘Megalong Valley‘ – translated to be ‘Valley […]
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Keen on an early start especially in the damp mist, determination paid off for us. Our small group of three drove out to one of the more remote parts of the Grose Gorge. Crawling along in the fog, our driver slowly rounded the corner to Eastern Grey Kangaroos happily grazing wild by the track. The dark grey male must have […]
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The forecast was for a warm windy day, so what better than to explore the shady dells below the Jamison Valley escarpment along the edge of Leura village. A small personable party of three, we passed through heath and native herbs, peas and myrtles flowering in spring this time of year. Cracked seed pods of the Hakea bushes lay across […]
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How lucky are we in the Mountains to celebrate spring and be just a short drive from a host of golden daffodils – all very much inspired by English 19th Century Romantic poet William Wordsworth. So last Saturday in mid September our tour headed west from the Blue Mountains, visiting wee Rydal village and its renowned daffodil festival. As always […]
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