Don’t Delay Your Stay: A complete travel guide to visiting Bilpin
No visit to the Blue Mountains is complete without a stop to ‘the land of the mountain apple’. But take our advice - you’ll want to loosen your belt.
Welcome to Don’t Delay Your Stay, news.com.au’s campaign to support communities hard hit by this summer’s devastating bushfires. Many of these regions rely on tourism so one of the best ways to help is to visit and spend time in some of the most beautiful parts of our great country.
Bilpin and neighbouring Mount Tomah were the scenes of some of the most heartbreaking destruction of the summer’s bushfires.
Luckily for us, these two Blue Mountains gems along the Bells Line of Road are back in business and eager for visitors.
Bilpin is known as the “land of the mountain apple” and so many great things to see and do — and eat and drink, of course — are based on the humble fruit.
The Bilpin Fruit Bowl farm has just opened its doors for Royal Gala apple picking, which will be a huge boost for the farm as it sadly lost 6000 apple trees in the Bilpin fires.
This is of course the birthplace of the famous Bilpin Cider Co. and a visit to its Cellar Door is a non-negotiable. The equally famous Hillbilly Cider company is also from Bilpin and has a Shed Door that’s another must-visit.
If you enjoy your apples baked into a pie — and who doesn’t? — be sure to call into the Bilpin Apple Pie Cottage Orchard cafe.
Also reopening after the bushfires is the sensational Blue Mountains Botanic Gardens at Mount Tomah, which has great walking trails, excellent food at the garden restaurant Potager, and lovely cottages to stay the night.
And in very exciting news for the region, the famous glow worms and fireflies at the Blue Mountains Glow Worm Canyon survived the bushfires and are very keen for visitors on night-time tours.
If you’re looking for something adventurous, Bilpin Moto Adventures has purpose-built motorcycle trails and training for beginners. For something at a calmer pace, visitors can go picking for peaches, plums and sunflowers at Pine Crest Orchard. There’s no entry fee: you just pay for the weight of what you pick.
The #BackToBilpin campaign is rallying support for the town and its Facebook page has even more ideas of things to see and do.