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Tuesday 7 July 2015

WALKING TRACKS AT GORDON FALLS RESERVE LEURA BLUE MOUNTAINS NSW AUSTRALIA


The picnic area at Gordon Falls, Leura, is a great base for exploring some of the best tracks the Blue Mountains has to offer. It’s a stopping place for the buses which do the Katoomba-Leura circuit many times every day so you can easily get there from Katoomba or Leura railway stations, do a walk and then move on to other places like Echo Point and Scenic World.
I suggest you view my earlier video about Gordon Falls Reserve here and the blog here. There many other videos and blogs dealing with the area. These are listed below.
My recent video on walking tracks at Gordon Falls Reserve is here.
Videos
Blogs

My Blue Mountains You Tube playlist is here. I have three other playlists- on gem hunting/mining, Glen Innes and New Zealand.

All New England and other Geology blogs and videos

Wednesday 1 July 2015

DOWNLOADING “THE SCENIC RAILWAY” SOUVENIR BOOKLET (1937?) KATOOMBA

The Scenic Railway at Katoomba was often called “The Mountain Devilwhen I was young. 
This was before the Skyway and more recently the Cableway were added to the present Scenic World complex. The connection is that visitors to the Blue Mountains often bought (or made) little horned figures out of the hard fruits of the honey flower (Lambertia) which is plentiful in the upper mountains. You will notice the “devil” images in the book and the name on the side of the carriage in photographs.
It’s not my intention to write a history of the place – others have already done a great job of that. I’ll let this little book tell the story itself, which is why you need to download a copy. According to “Trove” (the National Library of Australia’s online search facility), this publication is out of copyright so you are free to download a copy for your own use. The link with Trove is here. Go to the bottom of the page which loads up and click on the download link there. It begins with “View at …”.
At the time of publication the operation of the Scenic Railway was still under the control of the Katoomba Colliery Limited; subsequently the whole site was bought by the Hammon family and developed into the world class tourist attraction it is today. For more information on the origins of the present day Scenic World, see “The Burning Mists of Time” written by Philip J Pells and Philip J Hammon (2009). The book has its own website here. (Link not working February 2024.)
My video which accompanies this blog is here. It contains more photographs from the Scenic Railway booklet.
Here is a list of some of my videos and blogs (with links) which make reference to Scenic World:
Videos
The Cableway Scenic World 16th December 2014
The Skyway Scenic World 13th November 2014
Katoomba Falls to Scenic World 12th September 2014
Furber Steps 23rd January 2014
Blogs
Furber Steps Katoomba Falls 22nd January 2014
The Round Walk Katoomba Falls 15th September 2013
The Katoomba Falls Reserve 26th August 2013
The Orphan Rock Katoomba 21st August 2013

My Blue Mountains You Tube playlist may be found here. I have three other playlists - on gem hunting/mining, Glen Innes and New Zealand.
All New England and other Geology blogs and videos
Lambertia formosa - the Honey Flower or Mountain Devil