Around Sydney

Only 24km north of the centre of Sydney, Ku-ring-gai Chase  is much the best known of New South Wales’ national parks and, with the Pacific Highway running all the way up one side, is also the easiest to get to. The bushland scenery is crisscrossed by walking tracks, which you can explore to seek out Aboriginal rock carvings, or just to get away from it all and see the forest and its wildlife. The park’s most popular picnic spot is at Bobbin Head, 6km east of the Sydney–Newcastle Freeway, essentially just a colourful marina with a café, a picnic area and NPWS Bobbin Head Information Centre, located inside the Art Deco Bobbin Inn, which is neither a pub nor a hotel. From here, the Mangrove Boardwalk (10min return) pleasantly traces the water’s edge past thousands of bright red crabs and continues as the Gibberagong Track (additional 20min return) through a small sandstone canyon to some Aboriginal rock art featuring figures and axe-grinding grooves.

To the northeast, West Head Road leads to West Head, which juts into Broken Bay marking the entrance to Pittwater, a deep, 10km-long sheltered waterway. There are superb views from here across to Barrenjoey Head and Barrenjoey Lighthouse at Palm Beach on the eastern shore of Pittwater. From West Head, the Garigal Aboriginal Heritage Walk (3.5km loop; 2–3hr) leads past the Aboriginal rock-engraving site, the most accessible Aboriginal art in the park.

NEWCASTLE was founded in 1804 for convicts too hard even for Sydney to cope with, but the river is the real reason for the city’s existence: coal, which lies in great abundance beneath the Hunter Valley, was and still is ferried from the countryside to be exported around the country and the world. The proximity of the mines encouraged the establishment of other heavy industries, though the production of steel here ceased in late 2000 and most of the slag heaps have been worked over, but the docks are still functional, particularly with the through traffic of coal from the Hunter Valley. Today, Newcastle remains the world’s largest coal-exporting port, and there may be a couple of dozen bulk carriers queued off the beaches at any one time; ironically, the city also has a reputation as one of the most environmentally progressive places on Earth.

New South Wales’ second city, with a population of over a quarter of a million, Newcastle has long suffered from comparison with nearby Sydney. However, for a former major industrial city, it’s surprisingly attractive in parts, a fact now being more widely recognized. The city has been experiencing a real-estate boom: hundreds of apartments and hotels have gone up, and old icons have been redeveloped, such as the once grand Great Northern Hotel at 89 Scott St, first built in 1938 and now benefiting from a $3 million face-lift (check out the fabulous old map of the world on the ceiling).

Years of accumulated soot has been scraped off the city’s stately buildings, riverside gardens have been created in front of the city centre, and a former goods yard has been converted into a waterside entertainment venue. The once blue-collar town is taking to tourism in a big way, trading particularly on its waterside location – the surf beaches are wonderful, and there are some more sheltered sandy beaches around the rocky promontory at the mouth of the Hunter River. The large and lively student community keeps the atmosphere vibrant, and there’s a serious surf culture too – many surfwear- and surfboard-makers operate here, several champion surfers hail from the city, and there’s a big contest, Surfest, in March. You might not choose to spend too much time here, but it can be a good base for excursions, particularly to the wineries of the nearby Hunter Valley.

New South Wales’ best-known wine region and Australia’s oldest, the Hunter Valley is an area long synonymous with fine wine – in particular, its golden, citrusy Sémillon and soft and earthy Shiraz. In recent years the region has become equally prized for its restaurant and cultural scene: visitors are treated to some of the best the country has to offer in the way of fine dining, gourmet delis, arts and crafts and outdoor events and festivals.

Wine, however, is still the main attraction. The first vines were planted in 1828, and some still-existing wine-maker families, such as the Draytons, date back to the 1850s. In what seems a bizarre juxtaposition, this is also a very important coal-mining region, in the Upper Hunter Valley especially. By far the best-known wine area is the Lower Hunter Valley, nestled under the picturesque Brokenback Range, fanning north from the main town of Cessnock to the main wine-tasting area of Pokolbin. Cessnock, unfortunately, is a depressingly unattractive introduction to the salubrious wine culture surrounding it, though its big old country pubs offer a cheaper accommodation option. Broke-Fordwich is an easy fifteen-minute drive from the hectic centre of Pokolbin and also has many wonderful wineries, many of them boutique.

The area can seem a little like an exhausting winery theme park; to experience the real appeal of the Hunter Valley wine country explore the region’s periphery. Take the scenic, winding Wollombi Road to the charming historic town of Wollombi, 28km southwest of Cessnock; or try the Lovedale/Wilderness Road area, to the northeast, and the still unspoilt Upper Hunter, west of Muswellbrook, with its marvellous ridges and rocky outcrops.

The section of the Great Dividing Range nearest Sydney gets its name from the blue mist that rises from millions of eucalyptus trees and hangs in the mountain air, tinting the sky and the range alike. In the colony’s early days, the Blue Mountains were believed to be an insurmountable barrier to the west. The first expeditions followed the streams in the valleys until they were defeated by cliff faces rising vertically above them. Only in 1813, when the explorers Wentworth, Blaxland and Lawson followed the ridges instead of the valleys, were the “mountains” (actually a series of canyons) finally conquered, allowing the western plains to be opened up for settlement. The range is surmounted by a plateau at an altitude of more than 1000m where, over millions of years, rivers have carved deep valleys into the sandstone, and winds and driving rain have helped to deepen the ravines, creating a spectacular scenery of sheer precipices and walled canyons. Before white settlement, the Daruk Aborigines lived here, dressed in animal-skin cloaks to ward off the cold. An early coal-mining industry, based in Katoomba, was followed by tourism, which snowballed after the arrival of the railway in 1868; by 1900, the first three mountain stations of Wentworth Falls, Katoomba and Mount Victoria had been established as fashionable resorts, extolling the health-giving benefits of eucalyptus-tinged mountain air. In 2000, the Blue Mountains became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, joining the Great Barrier Reef; the listing came after abseiling was finally banned on the mountains’ most famous scenic wonder, the Three Sisters, after forty years of clambering had caused significant erosion. The Blue Mountains stand out from other Australian forests in particular for the Wollemi Pine, discovered in 1994, a “living fossil” that dates back to the dinosaur era.

All the villages and towns of the romantically dubbed “City of the Blue Mountains” lie on a ridge, connected by the Great Western Highway. Around them is the Blue Mountains National Park, the state’s fourth-largest national park and to many minds the best. The region makes a great weekend break from the city, with stunning views and clean air complemented by a wide range of accommodation, cafés and restaurants. But be warned: at weekends, and during the summer holidays, Katoomba is thronged with escapees from the city, and prices escalate accordingly. Even at their most crowded, though, the Blue Mountains offer somewhere where you can find peace and quiet, and even solitude – the deep gorges and high rocks make much of the terrain inaccessible except to bushwalkers and mountaineers. Climbing schools offer courses in rock-climbing, abseiling and canyoning for both beginners and experienced climbers, while Glenbrook is a popular mountain-biking spot.

The Royal National Park  is a huge nature reserve right on Sydney’s doorstep, only 36km south of the city. Established in 1879, it was the second national park in the world (after Yellowstone in the USA). The railway between Sydney and Wollongong marks its western border, and from the train the scenery is fantastic. If you want to explore more closely, get off at one of the stations along the way – Loftus, Engadine, Heathcote, Waterfall or Otford – all starting points for walking trails into the park. On the eastern side, from Jibbon Head to Garie Beach, the park falls away abruptly to the ocean, creating a spectacular coastline of steep cliffs broken here and there by creeks cascading into the sea and little coves with fine sandy beaches; the remains of Aboriginal rock carvings are the only traces of the original Dharawal people.

Although it’s New South Wales’ third-largest city, WOLLONGONG has more of a country-town feel; the students of Wollongong University give it extra life in term time and it also enjoys a big dose of surf culture as the city centre is set right on the ocean. Some 80km south of Sydney, it’s essentially a working-class industrial centre – Australia’s largest steelworks at nearby Port Kembla looms unattractively over Wollongong City Beach – but the Illawarra Escarpment, rising dramatically beyond the city, provides a lush backdrop.