The Royal National Park Coast Track is a classic 26-29km walk along the full length of the park’s coastline, just south of Sydney. There are unspoilt sandy beaches galore, shear cliffs, prominent headlands, interesting rocks, heathland, lagoons, pockets of forest, and even a palm jungle. There are a bunch of shorter day walks that take in sections of this walk, but only the full walk allows you to properly overdose on quintessential NSW coastal scenery.
Track Notes
The Coast Track runs from the sleepy and cut-off suburb of Bundeena in Sydney’s south, to Otford in Wollongong’s north. I’ve always been a bit confused about how long the walk is, but if you take public transport then it’s about 29-30km from the ferry wharf* at Bundeena via Jibbon Head to the end at Otford Lookout, and a bit further to get to Otford train station. It’s shorter (27km) from the RNP entrance on Beachcomber Ave. You won’t need track notes because its well signposted nowadays and the track is pretty obvious, but here’s a link to a short description on the National Parks and Wildlife Service website. It’s generally recommended to be done as a two day walk, but if you can sort out transport then I think it’s a very manageable if rather long day walk. Might take a fit walker about 7 hours. (*The ferry leaves from Cronulla in Sydney’s south-east).
Royal National Park Coast Track: The Scenery
Photos from two occasions, displayed in order within each occasion. I’ve taken heaps of photos of this coastline over the years, but I’ll include just a few highlights here.
27th July 2017
20th November 2016
A few more photos, these from our first time doing the full Coast Track (and taken with my old phone). We’d not done it in the past because we had only one car and couldn’t be bothered taking public transport, which adds time not just to the walking, but the travelling also.
