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Great West Walk extended from Penrith to Katoomba

By on 15 December, 2021 in Affiliated club news, Walks

In great news for bushwalkers – the Great West Walk has been extended from Penrith to Katoomba!

The Walking Volunteers have loaded the walking route onto their Sydney Walking Tracks map and Great West Walk. If you have downloaded either of these maps onto your PS, smartphone or tablet they will be automatically updated to include an additional 150 kilometres of walking routes including the 87 kilometres of the main route.

The additional routes encompass a wide variety of walking conditions from easy station-to-station village walks to the more demanding Woodford-Hazelbrook section. The loops and links include diversions to historical sites like the 1892 Cutting, the Tunnel Creek Track and the iconic St Helena Track/Oaks Fire Trail Hike which is only suitable for experienced bushwalkers.

Cutting on the Top Road

… a funicular railway down to the 1913 rail route along Glenbrook Gorge

The St Helena Ridge Track runs through a narrow defiles …

Pool of Siloam is still …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you would expect, the views in the Upper Blue Mountains are stunning but some of the lesser-known routes in the Lower Mountains and Mid-Mountains are just as astonishing. The main route runs past old inns, gatekeepers’ cottages, mountain cottages, intriguing ruins and a haunting cave site; along old railway cuttings and Cox’s original road; visits spectacular natural sites like Kings Cave, Leuralla Amphitheatre Sublime Point and Echo Point; passes man-made memorials at Macquarie’s Springwood Camp, Caleys Repulse, Honour Avenue, Coronation Park, and the haunting beauty of the Gully Walk.

Frederica Falls on Empire Pass

Western end of Mt Solitary from Prince Henry Cliff Walk below Sublime Point Reserve

… you look at it

 

The Walking Volunteers want to thank the Gundungurra ILUA Committee, Blue Mountains National Park and Blue Mountains City Council for allowing them to put this extension on their maps and providing vital information on temporary track closures between Gordon Falls and Echo Point, which are all marked on the maps with alternate routes. As these tracks are re-opened the Walking Volunteers will change their maps and these will be automatically updated.

Walking Volunteers Map Greater Sydney

By on 1 July, 2019 in Walks

the walking volunteers

Walking Volunteers Map Greater Sydney

The Walking Volunteers (WV) were formed in 2004 when the North Sydney Walking Volunteers and the Hunters Hill Walkers came together to walk and map a continuous walking route around Sydney Harbour and along the coast from Barrenjoey to Port Hacking. You can see most recent maps here.

The group worked with the Department of Planning, councils, community groups and the Sydway Mapping Division to prepare nine brochures for this continuous walking route. Over 400,000 of these were printed and distributed. The brochures were also available as a download from the Sydney Coastal Councils Group web site which received over 30,000 visitors a month including 2,300 from overseas. The Sydney Harbour & Coast maps were also available as a free App (Sydway Walker) and over 270 of these apps were downloaded every month.

Barrenjoey to Parramatta

Maintaining a supply of up-to-date printed maps has proved difficult so the Walking Volunteers decided to adopt a ‘digital’ solution. Since 2014 they have been re-walking their routes, mapping them on GPS, ‘normalising’ them with Google Earth and loading onto GoogleMyMaps to provide walkers with an online, scalable walking map of the Sydney metropolitan area.

The WV maps are now structured to feature the main continuous walking routes (shown in red) focussing on the coast, harbour and river with links to the Great North Walk and the Federation Track. Their most recent project has been the establishment of the Great West Walk from Parramatta to Penrith and Katoomba that links major green spaces like Parramatta Park, Western Sydney Parklands and Wianamatta Regional Park with Blue Mountains National Park and provides one-day walks from station to station on the Western Railway Line.

Parramatta to Penrith

Complementing these main red routes are loops and links, shown in green, spreading into adjacent neighbourhoods for shorter local walks and connections to transport, community nodes and points of interest.

Whenever possible. the routes identified are existing walking tracks or paths built by councils, National Parks and other land managers. In places the maps indicate future projected routes and these are indicated in blue.

The project is ongoing with the aim of providing a metropolitan-wide walking network in line with the government’s concept of a Green Grid linking the city’s green spaces.

Using the Maps

You can zoom in to whatever scale you wish and print off whatever area you are interested in, using the Snipping Tool. The map may also be downloaded onto your smartphone or tablet.

North Head

Download

To download the map just click on this link:-

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WPb6QnNn9Wfgr61qiv6dPVKW2SI&usp=sharing

Personal Computer

Just click on this link and it will open. Use the +/- button in the bottom LH corner of the map to zoom into any scale that suits you. If you want to view the map in Satellite mode, use the slide on the LH panel and slide down to the satellite button in the LH corner of this panel.

The red lines on the map are the main walking routes. The green lines are the local links and loops that are so important to local walkers. The blue lines are future walking routes. There are also layers for:

  • Toilets/water fountains
  • B-line Bus Stops on the Northern Beaches
  • T-way Bus Stops in Western Sydney

Just click the box on these layers when you need them.

Smartphone/Tablet

You can also download the link onto a smartphone or tablet:-

On an Android phone (Google, Samsung, LG, Sony, HPC, Huawei, Xiaomi, Acer and Motorola) click on this link. You may be asked if you want to open the map in Google Maps. If so, enter ”Y”. If it doesn’t ask you, close the direct link and:-.

Click on the Google Maps app .

Tap Menu   Your Places  Maps.

Tap the map “Sydney Walking Tracks” which should now be on the Maps menu

You will now be able to follow any walking route as it will show you your location on the map,

 

On an Iphone or Ipad just click on this link and the map will open but it will not show your location on the map.

Feedback

We would appreciate any feedback on the app or the walking routes. Also, please feel free to pass on the link to anyone who might use it.

Parramatta Female Factory

The Walking Volunteers