Top Towns for 2022: Explore Leura’s magical cold-climate gardens

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The quaint Blue Mountains township of Leura is a riot of colour come spring, with the blooms, the fresh mountain air and the Devonshire teas presenting an irresistible allure. Here, we explore the town’s highlights to uncover why Leura landed at number 49 on your list of Top 50 Aussie Towns.

Find the complete list of the Top 50 Aussie Towns here.

Just a 90-minute drive from Sydney along the Great Western Highway, which gently wends its way this way and that up the Blue Mountains, the delightful township of Leura (situated on the Traditional Lands of the Gundungurra and Dhurag people) is a popular choice for weekend day-trippers, who head here to enjoy Devonshire teas and perambulate its boutique-lined high street, known as the Mall.

Aerial view of the Blue Mountains

The town sits in the heart of the Blue Mountains. (Image: Destination NSW)

While some would argue for its status as a suburb of Katoomba, which sits just two kilometres away, Leura wears its independence proudly. With its neighbour shouldering the responsibility of being the commercial heart of the mountains, the township revels in its quaint proportions and charming streetscapes.

Leura pie shops

Work up an appetite for locally made fare. (Image: Destination NSW)

Leura’s collection of private gardens

Accessible by rail since the opening of its station in the late 1800s, the well-heeled residents of Sydney flocked to the budding hill station in the 1920s and ’30s to build generously proportioned weekenders surrounded by fanciful cold-climate gardens. This history has endowed Leura with one of its most delightful drawcards – its elaborate private gardens – and resulted in one of its most celebrated events, the Leura Gardens Festival, which takes place annually in October.

Leura Mural

Leura wears its unique identity proudly. (Image: Destination NSW)

Leura Gardens Festival

Established in 1965, the festival started with just four gardens and the aim of raising much-needed funds for the Blue Mountains District Anzac Memorial Hospital; in the ensuing 57 years it has added a number of gardens to the program and raised millions in the process.

Flowers in Leura

Explore the beauty of Leura’s gardens. (Image: Kristen Greaves/ Destination NSW)

The Everglades

With varieties such as azaleas, rhododendrons, dogwoods and camellias thriving in the cool mountain air, spring presents as a riot of vibrant colour in Leura. One of the most famed local gardens on the festival program is the 5.2-hectare Everglades.

Everglades gardens Leura

Amble through the Everglades garden. (Image: Destination NSW)

National Trust listed along with the graceful Art Deco-style house it surrounds, the layout was designed by Danish-born Paul Sorensen, quite the celebrity landscape gardener in the day, and boasts a reflection pool, grotto pool, paths winding down through the terraced gardens and exuberant plantings, with panoramic views over the Jamison Valley to Mt Solitary as a bonus.

A town in full bloom

And if you can’t make it to town for the official festival, walking the residential streets at any time of the year, up hill and down dale, is definitely the next best thing, taking in abundant blooms spilling over picket fences and neat flowering hedges framing chocolate-box mountain cottages.

Leura Streetscapes

See Leura in full bloom. (Image: Destination NSW)

Your Devonshire tea (book a table at the stunning Sorensen’s Glasshouse & Garden to try its freshly made scones) will taste that much better after all that fresh mountain air.

Explore more of the Blue Mountains in our travel guide or find out which other towns made it into your Top 50.
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A Japanese-inspired bathhouse just opened in the Blue Mountains

    By Carla Grossetti
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    Memories of a childhood in Japan were the inspiration behind Aqua Ignis, a new Blue Mountains bathhouse.

    A new revolutionary bathhouse in the Blue Mountains is redefining wellness by drawing on ancient bathing traditions from around the world. Aqua Ignis co-founder Taku Hjelgaard says it was the experience of visiting an onsen near his grandparents’ home in Osaka that first inspired this contemporary take on a bathhouse.

    “I remember riding on a bike around the narrow winding streets of Osaka, immersing myself in these giant baths and then lying on my back in the tatami room feeling relaxed and rejuvenated,” says Taku, who was born in Japan, but raised in the UK and Australia.

    “I would ride home with the wind in my hair at night through these beautiful Japanese streets. These memories are etched in my mind and ultimately inspired the creation of Aqua Ignis,” says Taku.

    the front of Aqua Ignis bathhouse, Blue Mountains

    Aqua Ignis is the newest bathhouse to open in the Blue Mountains.

    The name Aqua Ignis draws from the Latin: Aqua (water), which represents the bath and steam room elements; and Ignis (fire), which represents the sauna. Taku says the two words capture the core experience of visiting the Blackheath bathhouse.

    “It’s that interplay between hot and cold, water and heat. One of the things I really love about Japanese bathhouses is that it’s therapy for both the mind and the body. It’s engaging in a hot and cold treatment, soaking up the magnesium, and then having a really restorative rest in our beautiful spaces,” says Taku, who also works part-time as a counsellor.

    Taku’s brother-in-law, Korean-German architect Siki Im was behind the transformation of the old Art Deco property that houses Aqua Ignis. Taku’s business partner, carpenter Lee Nias, was also involved in the transformation of the heritage structure. The building was reimagined as a ‘room within a room’ concept that allows for fluid transitions between spaces.

    inside Aqua Ignis bathhouse, Blue Mountains

    Not only does the bathhouse feature onsen-like baths, but it also has steam rooms and saunas.

    Taku says Aqua Ignis also nods to Turkish hammams with its herbal-infused steam rooms.

    “My business partner Lee’s heritage is a real mix. He’s part Chinese, part Indian, part Irish, part English. Our architect is Korean but lives in Germany. And my heritage is Japanese so it makes sense that we blend a lot of different global traditions together,” he says.

    Both Lee and Taku grew up in the Blue Mountains and say Aqua Ignis is a way of giving back to the community. Taku says the ultimate goal is for visitors to experience a uniquely Australian form of wellness. “It’s wellness that respects diverse cultural practices while creating something entirely new,” Taku says.

    “We are eternally grateful to the Blue Mountains, the people, the landscape, the trees, the water that has shaped us. Our way of giving back to community is by creating this bathhouse, which reflects the country’s rich, complex cultural landscape,” he says.

    Taku says he and Lee have been consulting with a local Gundungurra woman to incorporate Indigenous Australian elements through a eucalyptus cleansing ceremony.

    the sauna at Aqua Ignis bathhouse, Blue Mountains

    The hot rock sauna is a nod to the European tradition.

    Aqua Ignis has a hot rock sauna, herbal steam room, magnesium mineral bath, cold plunge and rest areas. Together, Taku says the treatments provide visitors with a space to reset.

    You can find Aqua Ignis at 239 Great Western Highway, Blackheath, NSW

    Stretch your legs on one of these hikes in the Blue Mountains. Next, enjoy a restorative session at Aqua Ignis, followed by a stay at one of these cosy Blue Mountains cabins?