Grose Valley

The Grose Valley, in the centre of the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, Australia, is regarded as the cradle of conservation in NSW. At the heart of the Grose lies the magnificent Blue Gum Forest, the site of which was the first major conservation battle in the state in 1931. Since then, almost the entire catchment has been reserved in the National Park. The main reason that the valley was able to escape development is the massive cliffs on either side. There are only a handful of easy passes into or out of the valley, and development has been limited to the cliff tops. Much of the valley has recently been preserved as wilderness, further protection for the chasms, canyons and cliffs that make up this spectacular landscape.

Charles Darwin described the Grose Valley as 'stupendous ... magnificent' when he visited this place in 1836. Blue Mountains and Grose Valley with Govett's Leap lookout (the second most popular lookout in Blue Mountains) are only two hours by train from Sydney. They are still magnificent, with majestic gorges, tumbling waterfalls and its distinctive hazy blueness.

The Govett's Leap lookout is named after the first white man to have come to the spot, William Romaine Govett, as an assistant surveyor in June 1831, who discovered the leaping waterfalls there, that drop vertically over the side of the deep gorge down in to the sub-tropical bush below.