DESTINATIONS NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALASIA LEFT:
Quad biking at Stockton Beach, Port Stephens
RIGHT AND BELOW: Emirates
One&Only Wolgan Valley
our story. Story is the one thing they couldn’t take from us. My grandparents are the grandchildren of first contact, so it’s not that long ago. Now we’re trying to retell our story.”
w TRUE BLUE Travelling west to the Blue Mountains the next day, we reach the base for our final adventure: the Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley. Here, they are also protecting the land, albeit in a different way. An estimated 9,000 kangaroos, wallaroos and wallabies live on this 7,000-acre reserve – that just so happens to have a luxury resort on it – and no cars are allowed. In total there’s more than a million
hectares of mountains, forests and waterfalls in the Blue Mountains, and 90 miles of walking tracks. We set out early next morning on a bracing hike to the top of Donkey Mountain to
In such a bucolic setting, you could forget you’re in Australia – at least until a mob of kangaroos bounces across the lawn
bark falls off but the leaves stay. In winter it can be minus 10 but flowers blossom, and the bees don’t sting.” We come across a sandstone cliff
view the staggering rock formations up-close. The air is scented with eucalyptus and clematis, and we’re wrapped in mist as we weave our way through the silvery barks and acid-green mosses of the forest. “Everything here is upside-down to
what you know,” says our guide. “The mountains aren’t really blue, it’s the haze from the eucalyptus oil. Autumn
in the forest with white sand tumbling from it – this is the origin of the sand on New South Wales’ beaches. If trekking’s not for you, there’s also horse riding, gentler nature walks and a scenic railway hereabouts. A roundtrip from Sydney, taking in the Hunter Valley, Port Stephens and the Blue Mountains, takes just nine hours in pure driving time, but such is the diversity here, you could spend weeks exploring and still not see it all. We crammed in so much: surfing and sand dunes, rainforests and rolling green vineyards, exhilarating bridge climbs and chilling out in our private pools, not to mention the food and drink. I’m just glad I don’t have to squeeze into a wetsuit any time soon.
FIND OUT MORE
l bistromolines.
com.au
l bridgeclimb. com
l letsgosurfing.
com.au
l peppertree
wines.com.au l sanddune adventures.
com.au
l sydneyopera
house.com
l
sydney.com
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travelweekly.co.uk 10 January 2019
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