‘Mountains Drums’ Blog

Welcome to ‘Mountains Drums‘.

This is Nature Trail’s field blog expressing views and insights about the goings on out in the Blue Mountains great outdoors from our local experiences over decades.

This blog is written mostly by one of our regular Mountains hikers, Flex, plus also our Tour Director Steve’s contribution articles from time to time, as he’s see fit to raise.

We also invite our guests to submit their own article to this blog. Just email us at:

steve[at]naturetrail.com.au

The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area covers over a million hectares of native vegetation and is arguably a bushwalker’s paradise of choice.

Yet over more than twenty five years of hiking the Blue Mountains, we continue to observe and read about those accessing the Blue Mountains great outdoors and those managing this World Heritage failing to learn from the wisdom of others before them – the requisite knowledge, skills, experience, preparation and attitude to appreciate and not harm or being harmed.

At Nature Trail we relish the great outdoors and value the Blue Mountains and its magnificent and expansive world heritage region.

But while we embrace the outdoors experience, fun and adventure, we are critical of those who foolishly risk life and limb and who recklessly encourage others to do likewise.

Whilst the Blue Mountains may still be of world heritage value, we do not see world’s best practice nor leadership evolving in outdoor recreation nor in custodial management.

Hardly a week passes without reports of helicopter rescues of injured hikers, canyoners and rockclimbers, of lost hikers, benighted hikers, missing hikers and of deaths by those setting out ignorant or just poorly prepared.

We constantly read reports by locals of the threats of invasive tourism, ugly mass tourism, the dominance of a tourism oligopoly, of poor track conditions and neglected signage, of the underfunded and understaffed National Parks and Wildlife Service.

We observe the disconnect between government authorities delegated with custodial responsibility for protecting and managing the natural values of The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, and with tourism providers and consumers.

More recently we’ve observed multiple landslips left neglected for months and years, that then shut down many hiking tracks (as well as critical road and rail access). Government repeatedly allows wildfires to burn, in 2019 left to incinerate 80% of the world heritage area and other ‘National Parks’ so-called throughout New South Wales. Governmental abandonment of its national quarantine responsibilities allowed an imported China Virus Pandemic shut down Blue Mountains tourism and visitation completely for two years (2020-2021).

Each tragic instance/incident is reported in isolation, but as if some freak event, then it’s soon forgotten by the media. No lessons are learned by authorities responsible, no improvements are applied to safety standards or education to visitors/users. So inevitably, similar tragic instances/incidents repeat time and time again.

One purpose of this Mountains Drums blog serves is to share local knowledge and goings on about the Blue Mountains region’s great outdoors to all. Also, it is to highlight management problems, many chronic; and to question why the governmental custodians and managers of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, fail to listen, learn and deliver world best practice leadership.

Our hiking blogger Flex does not hold back. This ‘Mountains Drums‘ blog is intended to be a wake up call to the Blue Mountains community to lift its game and to actively challenge government responsible.

The articles on our Mountains Drums blog form part of Nature Trail’s contribution to the Blue Mountains community in which we live, operate and share. We value the beauty and sanctity that the natural Blue Mountains offers. We value the safety and viability of our Blue Mountain community at the same time.

Responsibly, we are concerned when these vital values are undermined. So then we speak out as informal ambassador locals about where we live.

Of course visitation is for fun; but safety must come first, and then the fun a reassuring second.

Every participant recreating in the great outdoors deserves to return well to their loved ones. Through our ‘Mountains Drums’ blog channel we choose to fairly tell what’s been happening in our neck of the woods. We tell it warts and all.

To contact Flex at Mountains Drums email: flex[at]naturetrail.com.au

Blog Posts

Mountains Rescues

By Flex / May 4, 2022

Police Rescue PR at Echo Point

Whilst on a tour showcasing the Blue Mountains classic vistas on 2nd May 2022, our tour guest group at iconic...

Ambermere Inn of Hartley defeated after sustaining two years of China Virus pandemic lockdowns

Bushfires Killing Tourism, Government Disconnect from Blue Mountains Tourism, Mountains Treasures, Pandemic Lockdowns Killing Tourism, Village Amenity

By Tour Director / April 28, 2022

Ambermere Inn of Hartley defeated after sustaining two years of China Virus pandemic lockdowns

For perhaps the past decade or so our family, friends and neighbours around Katoomba have specially selected to travel to...

Blue Mountains National Park blanket lockout is a gross “overreaction” by the NSW Government

Government Disconnect from Blue Mountains Tourism, Track Closures

By Flex / April 14, 2022

Blue Mountains National Park blanket lockout is a gross “overreaction” by the NSW Government

Leading Blue Mountains environmentalist Keith Muir has called the shutdown of the Blue Mountains National Park a gross "overreaction" by...

Parks Service bureaucratic drizzle shuts the entire Blue Mountains National Park

Deaths in the Mountains, Government Disconnect from Blue Mountains Tourism, Mountains Rescues, Mountains Weather, Track Closures

By Flex / April 7, 2022

Parks Service bureaucratic drizzle shuts the entire Blue Mountains National Park

Yesterday the New South Wales Parks Service decided to blanketly close the entire Blue Mountains National Park of some 2690...

Deaths in the Mountains, Government Disconnect from Blue Mountains Tourism, Landslips Killing Tourism, Track Closures

By Flex / April 5, 2022

Wentworth Falls landslips kill again

Tragically again, two more people have been killed by a landslip in the Jamison Valley just south of the village...

Governmental contempt for Popes Glen east of Blackheath

Bushfires Killing Tourism, Government Disconnect from Blue Mountains Tourism, Track Closures

By Flex / March 23, 2022

Governmental contempt for Popes Glen east of Blackheath

Popes Glen Bushland Reserve is located on the eastern bushland outskirts of the village of Blackheath in the Blue Mountains,...

Lightning destroys Hartley’s Lolly Bug Shoppe

Mountains Weather

By Flex / January 21, 2022

Lightning destroys Hartley’s Lolly Bug Shoppe

As if government lockdowns from NSW Government's abject failure in bushfire management and then Australian Government's abject failure in quarantine...