Inspire

Built as a health retreat in 1901, Kurrara Historic Guest house is once again a place to find inner peace and wellbeing.

Lording over the main street of Katoomba, its imposing curved driveway announcing its grand and ornate exterior, is one of the Blue Mountains’ oldest hotels – The Carrington. Opened in 1882 and originally called The Great Western, the hotel heralded a new era of tourism for Katoomba, which had until then been a “nondescript little mining town” originally bearing the comical name of The Crushers.

Continuing a botanical legacy: Blue Mountains Botanic Garden.

Nine years before Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson made their historic trek across the Blue Mountains in 1813, a naturalist named George Caley – curator of the colony’s first botanic gardens at Parramatta – forged a route along the northern rim of the Grose Valley, the first European to penetrate the mountains west of Sydney.

The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area is Australia’s most accessible wilderness.

Stretching over one million hectares, the region is an inspiring and diverse mix of rainforest, blue-hazed valleys, golden sandstone escarpments, canyons, tall forests and windswept heathlands. It is one of Australia’s iconic landscapes and has received National Landscape status in recognition of its world-class experiences of environmental and cultural significance.