Convict Trail app for iPhone and iPad

The Convict Trail is a revolutionary driving tour app for the Great North Road (Tourist Road 33) heading north towards the town ship of Wollombi, New South Wales, Australia. As you drive, you will enjoy stories from the characters who built the road and hear commentaries that explain how the road was built and the conditions that were endured when building the road.

The Great North Road was built with convict labour in the early 1800s and extended from Parramatta (the second city founded after Sydney) all the way to Newcastle.

The road is significant in Australia’s Convict and Engineering Heritage and the area retains preserved examples of stone walls, rock-cut gutters and culverts. This app will help you imagine what it was like to work as a convict constructing a road way through virgin forest and explain the hows and whys of road building.

The content is a great experience for visitors who want to find out more about the Great North Road, Convict Life or Australian History and Engineering, or simply want to take a driving tour with a difference. It was designed for an audience who love Australian history or upper primary or high school students who are studying convict history.

The app contains an overview of the trip, a photo gallery of the places you can stop to see and images of artefacts the same as those used building the road, . The app is integrated with some of the navigation apps (Apple Maps, Waze, etc.) to help you find your way to the start of the driving tour.

The main driving experience uses some fantastically crafted audio that plays when you reach certain points along the way. You can drive hands-free without having to interact with your iPhone or iPad.

Before you leave, mount your device into a cradle, plug in some car power (location services will use your battery), set up and test the audio (you might have an external speaker or Bluetooth audio) and take the tour (optionally choosing to use your favourite directions app). Then head to Central Mangrove and onward to Wollombi.

Just after you pass the intersection of Wisemans Ferry Road and George Downes Drive at Central Mangrove the content will start and accompany you through to Wollombi. That’s about a 40 minute journey. There are some optional stops along the way where you can inspect some of the heritage stone work ( but there’s no content at those stops, so you can explore on your own, or you can choose to drive all the way through ). Note that these places have varying ground and road conditions, so be careful if you plan to stop.

If you aren’t nearby or not planning to take the tour, you can still hear an audio teaser and a preview of all the audio. Perhaps it will entice you to come and visit the Hunter Region!

The road is one of the scenic gateways into the famous Hunter Region of New South Wales. Take this tour on your way up to the Hunter Valley as a deviation from the expressway. Stop at the town of Wollombi and take the walking tour (content provided).