Your introduction to touring the Blue Mountains & Beyond

Your journey across and around the majestic Blue Mountains will essentially follow the same route carved out in 1813 by explorers Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson. Although you will of course be in a vehicle, you will basically be following the footsteps of these three famous men, who by finding a route over the daunting Blue Mountains, discovered desperately needed fertile grazing lands in the western foothills - thereby ensuring the survival of the fledgling penal colony in Sydney.

While the three white settlers won fame for their epic journey, they were far from the first people to traverse the Mountains. For many thousands of years before 1813, Aboriginal hunters and gatherers moved to and from the Sydney Plains across the Blue Mountains, sheltering in caves and valleys.

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William Wemtworth, William Lawson and Gregory Blaxland. These paintings are reproduced with the kind permission of Woolworths Ltd
and Standard Publishing House Pty Ltd. They are extracts from Woolworths' 'Exploration of Australia' Heritage Poster.

These are thought to have been members of the Daruk tribe of the east, the Wiradjuri of the west and the Gandangara of the south., Their historic waterholes, grinding grooves, handpaintings, rock carvings and other legacies can all be seen today. Throughout your fascinating journey you will pass numerous relics of colonial and precolonial history..... history you can actually touch.

Historic buildings - many of them former coaching houses and inns during the tough pioneering days of the colony - dot the highways and byways. So do countless other places and points of historical interest. Several pristine sections of the first road built over the Mountains - that of William Cox in 1815 - can still be walked upon and marvelled at.

Often tucked just a few metres away in the bush on one or both sides of the road, are colonial treasures of which few tourist operators, visitors and residents are aware.

If you do just a little exploring of your own using the ‘Blue Mountains Wonderland Touring Guide’ you will fill your photo album and your head with endless magical memories to treasure forever. Have a wonderful Blue Mountains Experience.