Join this train-friendly history walk in the mid Blue Mountains, beginning with a guided tour of heritage-listed Woodford Academy, once an inn and sly-grog shop. A small $10 fee, payable on the day, covers the Academy tour.

After that, the walk continues for about 8 km through local streetscapes, fire trails and tracks in Blue Mountains National Park. Along the way you’ll encounter stories of murder, money, minors, Mabel Falls and more, with reflections on the area’s deeper Aboriginal significance. Reasonable fitness and a hardy attitude to the weather are required.

Please ensure your mobile phone number is up-to-date with WEA before enrolling and ensure that you have it with you on the day in case the tutor needs to contact you. Meet on Woodford station at 10am. Train (Blue Mountains line) leaves from Central Station at 8:26am. We aim for a return train leaving Woodford at 2:41pm. Please check the Transport NSW website for further travel information on how to get there.

DELIVERY MODE

Face to face

COURSE OUTLINE

•    Train-friendly 4 1/2-hour walk
•    The western road across the mountains: innkeepers and a murder
•    Pre-colonial Darug and Gundungurra people in this place
•    An early colonial building
•    Tour of Woodford Academy, a boarding school for boys in the early 20th century
•    Flora and fauna of the mid-mountains
•    The Fairfaxes, and the Transit of Venus 1974
•    Mindful walking

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course students should be able to understand the significance of this location, to both First Nations, colonists and later generations. They may sense the difference in approaches to place. They will get a sense of earlier styles of education for boys. They will walk tracks and know why they have been built, and by whom. And finally, walking is good for body, mind and soul.  

COURSE RESOURCES

• Goodlet, Ken. Hazelbrook and Woodford: A Story of Two Blue Mountains Towns. Hazelbrook, NSW: Self-published, 2006. (later reprints)
• Stockton, Eugene, ed. Blue Mountains Dreaming: The Aboriginal Heritage. Winmalee, NSW: Three Sisters Productions, 1993.