Gnomes heading up the Mountains

October 2022

Published in the Blue Mountains Gazette

The gnomes are heading up the Mountains.

For the last 20 years, the Lower Blue Mountains Rotary Club has held the Great Australian GnomeConvention on AUstralia Day in Glenbrook Park. But after the death of the Gnome Master David Cook and COVID restrictions, the club decided to change its focus.

But this left the gnomes looking for a place to hang out for the day. Enter David Clark, who was part of the Gnome Convention team, a past member of the Lower Mountains Rotary Club and now a member of the Blackheath Rotary Club.

He has taken up the baton and is proposing to hold a Rotary Gnome Convention (albeit on a smaller scale) in the beautiful grounds of the Campbell Rhododendron Gardens in Blackheath.

To coincide with the town’s annual Rhododendron Festival on the first Saturday in November, the gnomes will take up positions around the lower garden pnd walkways.

Mr Clark is hoping that people will give a gold coin donation while viewing the gnomes, with proceeds going towards Blackheath Rotary community projects.

He has spent months repairing and repainting the gnomes that have lost their lustre to bring them all back to life to be able to show them at their very best.

Everyone, young or old (and young at heart) will love to wander through the gardens and relive their childhood dreams of fairies and gnomes in the bottom of the garden.

A gnome bus will be available to transport people from the festival area to the Rhododendron Gardens throughout the day, so patrons will not have to worry about parking, which will be at a premium on the day.

The hope is to have well over 1,000 gnomes on display during the day and patrons can be assured that they will be seeing hundreds of different gnomes from small to huge, and from all over the world, with the gnomes enjoying the Rhododendron Gnome COnvention Day themselves.

So come and enjoy the day at the Rhododendron Gardens and view the gnomes on display for only one day.