New South Wales

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the Great Dividing Range itself;

- the fertile farming and pastoral country which slopes gently down towards the interior of the state; and

- the arid and sparsely populated outback to the west.

Tourist attractions

The great highlight of New South Wales, and indeed of the whole of Australia, is the state capital, Sydney, with its big-city attractions, its National Parks, its fine beaches and its facilities for water sports in the bays and inlets surrounding the city.

In the city's hinterland, beyond the Blue Mountains, are the Golden West, with its rich grazing land, huge fields of wheat and, in the past, its gold, and the irrigated Riverina region along the rivers Murrumbidgee and Murray (fruit, rice).

To the south extend great stretches of beautiful beaches - the Illawarra or Leisure Coast, the South Coast, the Alpine Coast.

In the Snowy Mountains (Australian Alps) is the marvellous natural landscape of Kosciusko National Park, with Australia's highest mountain and a number of other peaks over 2000 m. Here there are excellent (though expensive) facilities for winter sports and endless scope for walking in summer.

From Sydney the Pacific Highway runs north through the Hunter Valley and along the Holiday Coast, with a string of beaches and holiday resorts extending along the coast into Queensland.

From the coast of northern New South Wales excursions can be made into the mountainous hinterland of New England (rain forests), where the summer is pleasantly cool.

In the far west is the outback - arid, hot, inhospitable, with salt lakes and rivers which only rarely have any flow of water.