Google Maps glitch leads tourists to dead-end Australian suburb instead of the Blue Mountains

Annabel Fenwick Elliott
Updated
Tourists in search of Australia's Blue Mountains were taken instead on a road to nowhere - ©2015 Richard Sharrocks
Tourists in search of Australia's Blue Mountains were taken instead on a road to nowhere - ©2015 Richard Sharrocks

A sleepy suburb in rural Australia has received an unexpected influx of tourists after a Google Maps glitch led hundreds of tourists there instead of to the Blue Mountains.

Troops of eager sightseers who - expecting to pull up at the dramatic peaks of the famed travel destination - ground to a halt in the nondescript town of Dargan, New South Wales.

Residents of Dargan, which is nearly 20 miles and a 30-minute drive from the nearest entrance to the Blue Mountains National Park, were forced to erect a sign to direct visitors away reading: “Blue Mountains is not here (Google Maps is wrong) - you need to go to KATOOMBA.”

157508640 - Credit: Getty
Hundreds of tourists mistakenly ended up in a nondescript suburban cul-de-sac in Australia (stock image) Credit: Getty

Local resident Karen McLaughlin, 61, ironically a retired cartographer, told the Sydney Morning Herald that although she doesn’t begrudge the tourists for turning up mistakenly, there have been some less-than desirable consequences as a result.

“People following Google Maps to 'Blue Mountains' are usually non-English-speaking tourists, and I don't blame them at all,” she told the publication. “I feel sorry that they've come 35 kilometres out of their way and then have to go back again.”

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The error was first spotted online by locals in 2015 and by the close of 2016, Ms McLaughlin says there were cars turning up “every few minutes” during busy periods, with lost passengers sometimes knocking on the door asking to use her bathroom before turning around to get back on track.

This, coupled with the dangers of children playing in the quiet cul-de-sac of Valley View Road as cars and even buses approached, as well as passengers dropping cigarette butts in the high-risk fire region, has been far from ideal for all concerned.

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Residents of Dargan reportedly sent numerous complaints and notifications to Google but to no avail. It was only after the tech giant was approached by the media that the error was corrected.

Tourists who now type ‘Blue Mountains’ into the Google Maps search engine will find a pin in the centre of the national park.

In a statement to the SMH, a Google spokesperson blamed the error on third-party data providers and urged users of the service to report any further mistakes.