A mistake on Google Maps leads passionate tourists to the middle of nowhere

GOOGLE might rarely put a foot wrong but when the tech giant does make a mistake, you can always count on it being a monumental one.

IF YOU’VE ever been to the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, you’d know why they’re one of the state’s biggest tourist destinations.

Among the quaint town of Katoomba are the towering Three Sisters and the rolling, endless mountains tinged blue. They're beautiful and well worth a visit.

But some tourists, who blindly followed Google Maps to find their destinations, were being led completely astray.

The Blue Mountains are well worth a visit, if you can find them. Picture: Hugh Stewart

As reported by Fairfax , a glitch in Google Maps listed the centre of the Blue Mountains as a tiny cul-de-sac in Dargan, a town more than 30kms south of the mountains.

Local residents began noticing the influx of people way back in 2015 and by 2016, when their quiet Valley View Road started to be flooded with tourists, the locals resorted to extreme measures.

One neighbour even decided to erect a sign out the front of their house that reads “BLUE MOUNTAINS is not here (Google Maps is wrong). You need to go to KATOOMBA or Blackheath”.

Karen McLaughlin, 61, a neighbour who lives on the formerly quiet cul-de-sac, said she was seeing a car arrive every few minutes in summer.

“I feel sorry that they’ve come 35 kilometres out of their way and then have to go back again,” Ms McLaughlin told the SMH.

Another hilarious side-effect of the Google Maps stuff-up was tourists needing to go to the bathroom.

Ms McLaughlin said it’s quite common for buses to turn up to the quiet street and knock on her door asking to go to the toilet.

While the residents sent numerous complaints to Google over the error, it wasn’t until the company was contacted by the media that the mistake was rectified.

If tourists search for the Blue Mountains now, their pin will drop in the middle of the national park — which hopefully won’t encourage keen sightseers to try their luck and find the centre of the pin.

Google Maps has fixed their mistake now.