Holiday in New South Wales

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This state practically was Australia in the early days of European settlement. Today, with almost 6.7 million citizens, it is still the country’s most populous state and its capital Sydney is the country’s greatest city. If time is short, some travel planners advise visitors to concentrate on this state alone and a holiday spent entirely within New South Wales’ far-flung borders can be very rewarding for both urban pleasures and the delights of wild nature.

The ‘Premier State’ can be divided into four regions, which encompass many facets of the Australian experience. Most of the population live in the Coastal Lowlands, a fertile strip of country between Victoria and Queensland. This includes glamorous Sydney, one of the world’s truly great cities. It is amazing how it still seems in the first flush of youth: enthusiastic, welcoming, vibrant and open to growth and change. Two of its landmarks, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, became icons the day they were completed. Seen from across the water other new glamorous buildings constructed in the last 30 years add further drama and excitement while all around the harbour foreshore waterfornt suburbs of dream homes mingle with the remains of wild bushland. Sydney itself is extravagantly beautiful though it is greatly benefited too by magnificent natural surroundings with the heaths and forests of Ku-ring-gai Chase and Royal National Park as well as the high wall of the Blue Mountains. The climate, despite high rainfall, gives hot summers and bright winter days to please the many visitors who flock here.

Apart from Sydney, this State is home to the beachside industrial cities of Newcastle and Wollongong as well as a glorious chain of little ports and shore settlements like Ulladulla. It was here that White Australia’s history began, when Captain Cook’s charts led the First Fleet to Botany Bay, and where, after a shaky start, the process of colonization gradually got under way with the founding of townships and the clearing of the bush for farmland. This too was where Australian beach culture began, as love of the sun, surf and sheer physical well-being overcame the remnants of Victorian prudery in the early decades of the 20th Century, a process that owed much to the State's incomparable beaches, which are still one of the state’s great tourist attractions.

The Great Dividing Range, which in places drops almost directly into the sea, provides a constant backdrop to the coast with its hill-peaks and tablelands also running the length of the state. Despite their low altitude, the forested hills remained an impregnable barrier to exploration until 1813 when the spectacular Blue Mountains were succesfully crossed for the first time. The highlands are as wonderfully varied as the coast. To the south, in the Snowy Mountains, they include the country’s highest peaks while to the north lies the high-level plateau of New England, named after the old country for its misty cooolness and vivid green.

The Western Slopes fall gradually from the mountains and tablelands towards the interior. This area is mostly wheat and wool country though it has some small cities too such as Wellington and Bathurst.

Lastly the area known as the Western Plains stretches out to the borders with South Australia and Queensland. This area has vastly more sheep than people and it is here you can find the township of Bourke in utter remoteness, the Outback beyond the Outback. Also of note here is the city of Broken Hill which, founded on the world’s richest lode of silver, lead and zinc still attracts many visitors each year for its sheer strangeness.