New South Wales Attractions

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.

Sydney's long, narrow city center is traversed longitudinally by two main streets, George Street and Pitt Street. All the important businesses, offices and shops are situated near these two streets, between the Rocks, the area fringing the harbor, in the north and Central Station in the south.

The Rocks is now magnificently restored, and is linked by the Harbour Bridge (opened 1932) with North Sydney. Here too, on the harbor, is Sydney's principal sight, the new Opera House. On the west side of the central area is Darling Harbour, also finely restored in recent years.

Batehaven features a Shell Museum.