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Activity Tours
When I recently asked some friends what their favourite thing about the Blue Mountains was, I knew that some would say the clean air, that some would say the forest walks and others would say the views across the cliff tops. What I wasn't expecting was that just about everyone also said they loved the Leura Candy Store. The Leura Candy Store has only been opened since 1990 but it's obviously had a big impact on those my age and younger. The walls are covered in shelves stocked with all manner of goodness like gummy bears and musk sticks and boiled lollies in every colour you can think of. There are childhood favourites like umbrella shaped chocolates and crackling bubble gum and there are more exotic goodies like Hershey Cups and peanut-butter M&M's. Traditional favourites too like Fantails, sour snakes, milk bottles, freckles, licorish bullets, honeycomb chunks and those gorgeous tins of mints like your grandma used to keep in her purse. Like many of the villiages in the BLue Mountains, Leura has fought hard to maintain a warm, local, friendly feel to it. The Leura Candy Store, although not really all that old is a beautiful example of old fashioned fun. Tish For this and more great experiences, check out one of our Award Winning Hunter Valley Wine and Cheese Tasting Tours, the fantastic Blue Mountains, or New Sydney Sights tours on our website.
Here is an amazing video of a phenomenon that you would not believe unless you saw if for real, which I did - the wind was blowing so much that the waterfall at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains was blowing upwards!
On the same Blue Mountains tour, this close up video shows one of the cute Koalas at Featherdale Wildlife Park enjoying their usual diet of eucalyptus leaves:
For this and more great experiences, check out one of our Blue Mountains, Hunter Valley or Sydney Sights tours on our website. Brad
When I drive a tour, I like to crack a little joke about leaving people behind when we get back on the bus. I ask everyone to look around them and see that everyone they met that morning is back on the bus and I say , "I haven't lost anyone in weeks... but today could be your lucky day!". The truth is I haven't lost anyone in years - but it did happen once. I was taking a group up to the Blue Mountains on one of those warm happy days where everyone is smiling, everyone is relaxed. We'd been to Featherdale Wildlife Park, we'd done a little bush walk, and we'd had lunch so now we were heading over to play on the rides at Scenic World. The group had been talkative and funny and I was sure everyone was understanding my instructions - after all, pretty much everyone had been back on time at each stop and I thought the tour was going along nicely. There was a newly wed couple at the back of the bus who had been kissing and cuddling and keeping to themselves a bit but I figured that's just what honeymooners do - the whole world disappears when they are together and that's nice. We arrived at Scenic World and I gave the group instructions regarding what time we all needed to meet and where - we always meet at the statue of the naked people, it's easy to find. As the passengers all get off the bus, I looked at my honeymoon couple and said to them, "Are we all good, do you know what you're doing?" to which the gentleman replies, "Yes yes, thank you, we're good" and off they went like everyone else..... LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. THIS IS THE LESSON YOU CAN LEARN FROM THIS: Never ask a happy, carefree, distracted traveller an important question that can be answered with a yes or a no answer! If I'd taken the time to ask, "What time are you supposed to come back?" I would have realised that my newly wed friends were so busy kissing and cuddling in the back seat that they had not paid attention to a word I said. In fact, they hadn't understood most of what I'd said all day because he only spoke a little English and she spoke pretty much only Italian and between all the kissing neither had paid attention to what was happening. But the sun was shining, and they were happy and what ever their funny little tour guide was saying didn't matter because, yes, they were "all good". So the return time of 2pm comes and most of the group comes back. We wait till 2:10pm and all but the honeymooners are back. I start asking the rest of the group, "Did you see them? Did you see which way they went? When was the last time anyone saw them?" We'd been at Scenic World for over an hour and no-one remembered seeing them after they got off the bus. I looked everywhere for them, checked all the restrooms, had Scenic World staff check all the security cameras, asking all the other guides if they'd seen a young Italian couple looking lost...... Nothing. I called the contact phone number they'd given us when they booked, but the phone was off and went straight to voice mail. I left a voice message, left notes at all the information desks and all the cafes in the area. I called our head office and told them we were missing two passengers and I took the remaining 18 passengers (that had been waiting patiently for half an hour at this point) and continued to our next stop in the mountains. An hour later, we doubled back to Scenic World and had one more look around and asked around at all the counters. No sign of them, their mobile was still off, and head office hadn't heard a thing either. I was left with no choice but to head back to Sydney with two less passengers than I started with. It was the first time I'd ever left someone behind and hopefully it will be the last. I was so upset! The Mountains can be rugged - what if they'd got lost on a wrong turn? What if they had slipped and fell off a cliff and were cold and alone somewhere? What if they got off the path and into the bush and got bitten by a deadly snake or spider?? Imaginary news stories kept flashing in front of my eyes, "Newly Weds Dead after Tour Guide Looses Them" - how awful! And I was sure somehow it was all my fault. Running late and more than a little upset, I was just coming back into the outer suburbs of Sydney when the phone rang. It was a call from head office - they'd found my little friends! They had called, now four hours late to the pick up point, asking where the bus was. They had had their mobile with them the whole time but hadn't bothered to turn it on. And in what turned out to be very broken English, they had explained to head office that they thought we were meeting at 5.30pm not 2pm and could the bus please come back and pick them up. Needless to say, I did not turn around to get them. They were given instruction on how to get back to Sydney via the local train and I never heard from them again. After looking back on the day, I can see that although there were things that I could have done better, it certainly wasn't my fault that they didn't come back on time. But the stress and the trauma of thinking I had lost this lovely couple has stayed with me. Now, I always do a head count, I implement a buddy system on the bus, and I always, ALWAYS get passengers to repeat important information back to me. Just to make sure they were paying attention and not just making out in the back seat of the bus.
Tish Arellano Tour Guide for Activity Tours Australia. For more details on our Award Winning day tours to the Hunter Valley for Wine and Cheese tasting, to the Blue Mountains, and brand new Sydney Sights tours check out our website.
The Australian Tourism Awards operate at three levels: regional, state, and national. There are many categories catering for tourism attractions, tour operators, accommodation, restaurants, events, festivals, and some individual contribution awards. Entrants are judged on comprehensive submissions that cover many aspects of the tourism product, including business plans, financial viability, risk management, industry involvement, marketing, customer service, catering for those with special needs, training, innovation, respect for the local community, and environmental sustainability. Site visits by experienced independent judges help round out the objective assessment process. Judges are all experienced volunteers from the tourism industry who commit huge amounts of their own time throughout the process. There are independent auditors involved to ensure objectivity and consistency is maintained across the board.
In only the second year of entry in the Hunter Valley Tourism Awards, Activity Tours Australia has come up trumps, winning Gold in the 2010 Tourism Awards! Congratulations to all of the category winners listed here: http://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/news/general/the-winners/1918299.aspx For more details on our Award Winning day tours to the Hunter Valley for Wine and Cheese tasting, to the Blue Mountains, and brand new Sydney Sights tours check out our website. Cheers! Brad (very proud company owner!)
Activity Tours operates tours to the Blue Mountains four days a week, all year round, so, as a guide, I get to see them during all the seasons. At this time of the year, winter is starting to fade and the first signs of spring are starting to burst on to the scene. One of the first signs that winter is nearly over are the Wattle trees. Wattles are part of the Acacia family and there are lots of species that are native to Australia. Different species of wattle trees flower at different times of the year so you get these happy little yellow flowers almost all year round. In the Blue Mountains, August-September is when they really start to shine. Some of the varieties we get are the Sunshine Wattle, Swamp Wattle, and the Sydney Golden Wattle. The Golden Wattle is Australia's floral emblem, used in in our Coat of Arms (behind the Kangaroo and Emu), and it's what give us our Aussie colours - if ever you've seen an Australian sporting event, our players always dress in green and gold. We even have a "Wattle Day" - the First of September each year. The second sign that things are warming up is when you start to see the pink Magnolia trees come into bloom. Magnolias are not natives to Australia, they originate from China and Japan (and some hybrids are from France) but Sydney-siders love them and they thrive in our climate. From scrawny, leafless branches, in the winter, little pink buds start to appear as the days warm up and before you know it, there are pink and white fleshy petals popping from a back drop of electric blue skies. As summer approaches, the flowers drop off and light green leaves fill out the trees but for a few glorious weeks, pink is all the rage. And as if that wasn't announcement enough that the warmer days are coming, then you get the Jacarandas. Jacaranda trees are so iconic in the Australian landscape that you would be forgiven for thinking they are natives. In fact, they are not, they actually come from Brazil! They have been adopted by people all over the world though, and there is even a city in South Africa, Pretoria, that is known as the Jacaranda Capital of the World. In Australia, small country towns the land over line their main streets with them. Jacarandas come into full bloom around mid spring in most places or late spring in the Blue Mountains where it's a little cooler. Around that time - late spring, early summer - the Sydney region gets spectacular rain storms that usually hit late in the afternoon. You know summer is at your door when you get one of those bright, hot days, chased down with an afternoon storm, and you step outside onto the steaming streets now covered in blankets of purple Jacaranda flowers shaken loose by the storm. We're really blessed in this region to have great weather almost all year round, with very mild, short winters. But if I was going to pick a favourite time of the year to visit the Blue Mountains, spring time would definitely be it. Tish For more details on Sydney day tours from Activity Tours please see our website.
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