Is NSW Premier Chris Minns blindly following the shameful chapter of Scomo’s Robodebt clawback?
https://youtu.be/zDi3Tsc33iQ
Read More‘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
NSW Premier Berejiklian announced its COVID-19 Micro Business Grant in 2021 – never forget it was never any debt!
We recall that back on 15th July 2021, when in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic (despatched from Wuhan China...
Read More
Audio of a Service NSW contracted debt collector trying to clawback the COVID-19 Micro Business Grant from us…
Service NSW is a joke - its senior bureaucrats currently embarking upon a criminal extortionate joke at that. So, out-of-the-blue...
Read More
Centrelink lesson to Chris Minns feigning ignorance of Service NSW grant refund venality
[NOTE: The following article was sourced as follows: 'Top bureaucrat breached code of conduct 12 times during robo-debt', 13 September...
Read More
Dodgy Service NSW’s 2021 Micro Grant Terms and Conditions are changing like the wind
So too does its Micro Business Grant Guidelines. We've suspected and now discovered that what started out as a proverbial...
Read More
Premier Minns failing on his election promises – “a fresh start”… “to govern for everyone in NSW” Really?
When Chris Minns won the New South Wales election for Labor on 25th March 2023, in his victory speech he...
Read More
Opposition Whip Chris Rath questions fairness of Minns Ministry COVID-19 grant repayment clawback
In the NSW Legislative Council (upper house) during Budget Estimates 2024-2025, 'Opposition Whip' Chris Rath MLC on behalf of the...
Read More
Grant Recipients targeted by Service NSW’s unconscionable grant clawback scam wise to contact the NSW Ombudsman
Some of the grant recipients (of the 2021 COVID-19 Micro Business Grant) continuing to be harassed by Service NSW trying...
Read More
Grant Recipients wise to close their grant bank account and set up a new business account
[Disclaimer: Information provided in this article and elsewhere on this blog and website is not professional advice (financial, accounting, business,...
Read More
Minns Mafia: how its $781 million grant extortion racket works
If Australians thought foreign scammers were bad, well the Australian public ain't seen nothing once they discover the scale of...
Read More
[This webpage last updated 3rd October 2022]