This gallery contains 6 photos.
By Lithgow City Council Lithgow really does have it all – historic buildings ideal for the perfect backdrop, accessible landscape so film makers can show the true Australian experience and picturesque scenery, perfect locations for film makers and photographers. This year has already been a busy year for filming and photography in the Lithgow area. …
Autumn is an ideal season to explore the Blue Mountains, Lithgow and Oberon region. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
By Ellen Hill – Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
Autumnal hues and mild weather make autumn an ideal season to explore the Blue Mountains, Lithgow and Oberon region and venture onto bush tracks in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
A great all-weather activity at any time of year is a visit to Blue Mountains Cultural Centre www.bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au at Katoomba. On display during April is the audiovisual exhibition Instance by Honi Ryan and Desire, a collection of works exploring how our desires create who we are.
Experience Life on Mars at Ironfest, Lithgow. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
Experience humanity through the ages and even other worlds at the “festival with a metal edge’’, Ironfest at Lithgow (April 25-27, ironfest.net). The annual festival brings together artists, designers/makers, blacksmiths, performers of all kinds, musicians, historical re-enactors and more.
A national treasure, Norman Lindsay Gallery & Museum at Faulconbridge www.normanlindsay.com.au, will hold its annual Pudding Day children’s literature festival and celebration of The Magic Pudding (April 14). Join John Marsden, Cartoon Dave, Emily Rodda and those sneaky puddin’ thieves for a day of family fun.
The beautiful Everglades Historic & Gardens at Leura is a visual treat in autumn. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
Another beautiful National Trust property, Everglades Historic House & Gardens at Leura www.everglades.org.au, will host a fabulous display of wedding dresses through the ages staged by The North Shore Cavalcade of History and Fashion (April 12).
Mushroom in the state pine forests around Oberon is a great activity for the whole family. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
Explore the great outdoors with mushrooming in the state forests around Oberon, soak up the ambience of Sculpture at Scenic World and be sure to pay a visit to the many spectacular gardens throughout the Blue Mountains, Lithgow and Oberon region resplendent in autumnal hues including those at Mt Wilson, Blue Mountains Botanic Garden at Mount Tomah mounttomahbotanicgarden.com.au, Leuralla at Leura www.leurallatoyandrailwaymuseum.com.au and Mayfield Garden at Oberon www.mayfieldgarden.com.au.
And celebrate local and regional produce and sustainable living through the Autumn Sustainable Food Festival, with the TomahROMA http://www.mounttomahbotanicgarden.com.au/event.asp?pid=7&id=169 launch event at Blue Mountains Botanic Garden on May 3, the Leura Harvest Festival http://leuravillage.com.au/fairsandfestivals/ (an incentive of Leura Village Association) finale event, on May 10, and other satellite events throughout the region in between.
Worship in the majestic Catchedral Cave at Jenolan Caves. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
Commemorate Easter at a free non-denominational service in the Underground Group in the majestic setting of the Cathedral Chamber of the Lucas Cave at Jenolan Caves (April 20) www.jenolancaves.org.au.
Whatever you decide to see and do, be sure to fully immerse yourself in the Blue Mountains, Lithgow and Oberon region and treat yourself to a short stay at any number of accommodation providers to suit all budgets.
Easy to get to. Impossible to forget.
Music lovers and film buffs have the chance to see close up how live music and silent film work together, thanks to Katoomba Theatre Company
By Katoomba Theatre Company
Music lovers and film buffs have the chance to see close up how live music and silent film work together, thanks to Katoomba Theatre Company (KTC).
The company will present the oldest surviving animated film, complete with live music accompaniment, on March 9 before the show goes to the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane.
Made in 1926 by pioneering female animator Lotte Reinger using handmade paper silhouettes, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, was her debut film.
Crafted in exquisite silhouette animation style, the film follows Prince Achmed who, tricked by a sorcerer, soars into the sky on a magical flying horse with Aladdin and the Witch of the Fiery Mountain, in a series of adventures taken from The Arabian Nights.
A staggering feat of animation, Reiniger worked alongside experimental German animators Walter Ruttman and Bertold Bartosch to complete her incredibly detailed and beautiful film.
The film will be shown featuring live musical accompaniment by composer and arranger Dr Kim Cunio and soprano Heather Lee.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed will be presented by Katoomba Theatre Company at the Carrington Hotel Ballroom, Katoomba, at 8pm on Sunday, March 9. Tickets: $22. Bookings: (02) 4782 1111 or reception@thecarrington.com.au.
The “festival with a metal edge” attracts more than 14,000 people to Lithgow each year. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
By Lithgow Ironfest
Explore one of life’s burning questions – What would you wear if you lived on Mars? – at this year’s “Festval with a metal edge’’ at Lithgow during the Anzac Day long weekend (April 25-27).
Under the theme Life on Mars, the 15th annual Ironfest will once again put on one of the nation’s biggest dress-up parties.
The brainchild of metal artist Macgregor Ross, Ironfest involves more than 1000 participants from around the country and even overseas and attracts more than 14,000 people to Lithgow.
It is recognised as an event of state significance supported by Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism, Lithgow City Council, Energy Australia and a host of smaller supporters.
This year’s Ironfest theme will be Life on Mars. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
Ironfest celebrates excellence in craft of all kinds, whether it is in metal working, costume making, jousting, jewellery making or original music making. It brings together artists, designer makers, blacksmiths, performers, musicians, historical re-enactors, machine enthusiasts and hobbyists from around the world as well as people who just love to dress up.
This year, numerous elaborately costumed cosplayers are set to descend on Lithgow Showground to act out scenes from their favourite movies, TV shows and comics.
Festival director Mr Ross said the inaugural Ironfest Cosplay competition would be held this year hosted by Lisa Carroll and Lisa Green from the Nerdyheard, who had attended Ironfest for the past few years as visitors.
The competition will decide costume authenticity and attention to detail.
Steampunk road warrior Petar Rasic of Liverpool guards his patch of dirt at the entrance to the 2012 Ironfest in Lithgow. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
“We are really excited by this new event as it will build on the dress up element that has developed at the festival over the last few years,’’ he said. “So we are expecting to host one of the biggest dress-up parties ever seen in this part of the world.’’
As well as the dress-up, visitors to Ironfest 2014 can expect the usual events: real jousting on horseback, the Napoleonic era large-scale Battle of Lithgow, an expanded medieval village featuring non-stop sword combat as well as the full-flight birds of prey animal display; an expanded WWII-era historical encampment, more than 150 stalls, blacksmiths, Bloomfield’s Circus, musicians, dancers, even more steampunkers, choirs and lots more.
Ironfest will be held at the Tony Luchetti Showground, George Coates Ave, Lithgow, from April 25 to 27.
Tickets: Base/gate single day $35 adults, $30 concession, $25 children, $95 families; two-day weekend $55 adults, $45 concession, $35 children, $140 families.
Details and ticket purchases: www.ironfest.net. Follow Ironfest on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ironfest.
Steampunk maiden Carol Shearman of Leeton lays out her wares at her Outback Pampering store at the 2012 Ironfest in Lithgow. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
JOAN ROSS
Touching other peopleʼs butterflies 2013
digital animation screen shot
2 min 45 sec
courtesy the artist, Michael Reid, Sydney and Bett Gallery, Hobart
By Blue Mountains Cultural Centre
The Blue Mountains is home to more internationally recognised avant-garde artists than any other non-metropolitan area in Australia. Seven will feature in an upcoming exhibition at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, evocatively titled DESIRE.
A themed curatorial response to the 19th Biennale of Sydney – You Imagine What you Desire, artists Sarah Breen Lovett, Mike Parr, David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, Joan Ross and Ken and Julia Yonetani explore the results of pursuing our every whim, want or wish, in a society where desires are encouraged, exploited, and drive and motivate our everyday lives.
Curator Rilka Oakley says: “This exhibition examines how our desires create who we are and yet also limit our ability to reach our full potential. In this sense `desire’, becomes a double edged sword both restricting us and propelling us forward.’’
Lovett has made a study of the ruined Renaissance building in Katoomba that was originally St Mary’s Convent. Titled Ruin Lust (2014), Lovett has created a filmic slide show of the old convent as it is today accompanied by a sound track in which six people share their dreams of what the building could become. Two Blue Mountains business people and four artists – Jacqueline Brinkman, Michael Brischetto, Billy Gruner, Sarah Keighery, Ian Milliss and Mandy Schöne-Salter, provide this sound track.
Parr has created a series of vast self-portraits in a great variety of mixed media including charcoal, ink, pastel, watercolour, coloured pencil and graphite. Together they create one extensive drawing approximately 14m long.
Haines and Hinterding are both distinguished artists in their own right who have collaborated to make a complex multi-media installation in two parts, titled Alien Metaphysics (2014).
Ross creates digital animations and prints of colonial figures in the Australian landscape. The work included in DESIRE is from her series Touching Other People’s Shopping (2013) which explores the uncontrollable desire to take other peoples things: land, animals, shopping and culture.
(yonetani.jpg)
KEN + JULIA YONETANI
Grape Chandelier 2011
Murray River salt
230 x 140 x 140 cm
courtesy the artists and Artereal Gallery, Sydney
The Yonetanis have created an installation that is a sculptural rendition of the classic 17th century still life group. These sculpted images are made out of gleaming white salt denoting the sparkling quality and grandeur of pure marble, an association that is pertinent to a vanitas such as a still life.
DESIRE will be exhibited at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, 30 Parke St, Katoomba, from 10am-5pm Monday to Friday and 10am-4pm weekends, from March 14 to May 11. It will be officially opened by Dr Anne Graham at 6pm Friday, March 14.
Admission: $5 adults, $3 concession, members and under-16 free.
Public Programs:
Friday, April 4, at 5pm
Conversation about DESIRE:
Anthony Bond OAM & Mike Parr
$10 per person, $8 for InSight Members
A VADEA Regional Indulge event; free for VADEA members. Bookings essential: (02) 4780 5410
Saturday, April 5, at 3pm
Creative Futures Forum: Sarah Breen Lovett, David Haines & Joyce Hinterding.
Free event. Bookings essential: (02) 4780 5410
Go to www.bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au for more information.
Learn about Lithgow’s coal mining history at a lively talk.
By Lithgow City Council
Renowned author of Explosion, Explosion II and Explosion III Ted Green will honour the Lithgow Library Learning Centre with one of his lively and highly entertaining presentations on the profession of a coalminer and the world of coal-mining on March 18.
With a narrative style that is lively and a little irreverent, the 2013 Super Senior is an engaging speaker on a profession that is as mysterious to the average person as it is essential to the economic welfare of the Lithgow community.
Lithgow Mayor Maree Statham said: “The world of the coalminer is intrinsically part of the fabric that makes Lithgow the city it is and it will be great to hear Ted Green provide us with insights into that world through his talks, his books and his forthcoming film.’’
Ted will give his At the Coal-Face: The Most Dangerous Job in the World speech at the Lithgow Library Learning Centre’s next Tea and Talk event in the Main Street Lithgow Library at 10.30am on Tuesday, March 18.
Upper Blue Mountains businesses are invited to join the sustainable tourism movement and learn how to lower their carbon footprint.
By Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute
Environmentally conscious tourism businesses can learn more about how they can lower their carbon footprint at a forum at Katoomba on Tuesday, March 18.
The forum will outline the Low Carbon Tourism: Building Sustainable Communities initiative of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute (BMWHI) in partnership with BMLOT, Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC), NSW Office of Environment & Heritage (OEH) and others.
The initiative aims to promote the Blue Mountains as Australia’s first low carbon tourism destination offering more environmentally sustainable and authentic visitor experiences in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
Part of the project involves supporting tourism businesses to reduce their environmental impact and carbon footprint, therefore reducing operating costs.
Free audits are part of the project and businesses are provided with a clear report and recommendations on simple actions on how to achieve that.
Work is well underway with 13 Blue Mountains tourism businesses large and small already partnering with the initiative including Scenic World, Silvermere Guesthouse, Waradah Aboriginal Centre, The Carrington Hotel, Lily’s Pad Cafe, Blue Mountains Adventure Company, Moments Guesthouse, Mountain Heritage Hotel, Lilianfels, Parklands, Echoes and the Hydro Majestic.
Carrington Hotel, Katoomba, co-owner Michael Brischetto (l) explains to BMWHI manager Peter Shadie the hotel’s cogeneration plant.
Audits have been completed at several sites across the accommodation, food and beverage and attractions sectors with several businesses already receiving advice on ways to improve their operations and save money.
In return, participating businesses are asked to sign onto the low carbon initiative and commit to working toward reducing their carbon impact.
Through joining the initiative businesses will be positioning themselves to access the growing niche of clients looking for ethical, sustainable and low carbon tourism experiences.
The low carbon tourism forum will be held at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Parke St, Katoomba, from 5pm to 6.30pm on Tuesday, March 18.
Representatives of the Australian Low Carbon Living Cooperative Research Centre (www.lowcarbonlivingcrc.com.au), BMCC, BMLOT and other experts will attend.
After the forum there will be an inspection of the Carrington Hotel’s cogeneration plant and new microbrewery, followed by complimentary evening drinks. (The historic hotel is offering a discounted accommodation rate of $185 for a Premier Spa Room including continental breakfast. Details and bookings: (02) 4782 1111.)
Contact BMWHI research manager Peter Shadie at p.shadie@bmwhi.org.au or phone 0426 261 465 for more information.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit the Blue Mountains during their Australian tour in April. Photo: AAP
By Ellen Hill – Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and baby Prince George will visit the Blue Mountains during the Sydney leg of their trip “down under’’ from April 16 to 20.
The visit was announced yesterday (Monday, March 3) by NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell.
Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism (BMLOT) chairman Daniel Myles welcomed the honour.
“I am very proud that BMLOT was invited to assist in the arrangements for the visit to the Blue Mountains by the young royal couple.
“It is a wonderful secret a very small and tight-lipped group within the official regional tourism organisation has kept faithfully for some time. Of course we are delighted it has now been revealed and excited at the prospect of the royal visit.
“The Blue Mountains is one of the most recognisable, not to mention magnificent locations on the planet. It is fitting that one of the most recognisable couples in the world visit it.’’
The Blue Mountains, has been a favourite royal tour location for almost a century.
The Duke and Duchess of York during their visit to the Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves in March 1927.
The most celebrated visit was that of the then Duke and Duchess of York in March 1927.
On March 31 of that year, the royal couple arrived at Katoomba by train and walked the short distance from the railway station to The Carrington Hotel (the first resort-style hotel in Australia’s first tourist destination, the Blue Mountains).
Huge crowds greeted them. After lunch, they were driven to Echo Point, home of the Three Sisters, where thousands lined the streets.
The Echo newspaper reported that the Duchess was overheard to say: “ `Look at those clouds! Isn’t it wonderful.’ The Duke’s reply was unintelligible, but his face maintained its customary passivity.’’
The royal couple also visited Jenolan Caves during that tour.
“It’s a wonderful honour to have Their Royal Highnesses visit NSW so soon after the birth of their first child,’’ Mr O’Farrell said.
“I know the royal couple and the young Prince will receive a very warm welcome from the people of NSW, who will be keen to get their first glimpse of Prince George.
“I’m especially delighted The Duke and Duchess will be visiting the Blue Mountains to view the recovery and offer comfort and support to those affected by the devastating October bushfires.
“The visit of Danish royals Prince Fredrick and Princess Mary late last year to the Blue Mountains was a great morale boost for the residents in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, and this trip from The Duke and Duchess will demonstrate the region has recovered, is open for business and a great place for a getaway.
“We are delighted to be a host city for The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the young royal Prince.
“The breathtaking pictures of their visit beamed right around the globe will be priceless in showcasing our great state to the world.’’
Details of the visit to the Blue Mountains will not be released by BMLOT until they are conveyed through official State Government and Kensington Palace channels.
The royal couple will visit the Blue Mountains during their Australian tour. Photo: David Hill, Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism
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