One of Sydney’s classic bushwalks, the 27-30km Coast Track is a smorgasbord of coastal scenery, including plenty of sandy beaches, cliffs, weathered rocks, prominent headlands, lagoons, and heathland.
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
From Bundeena Ferry to Otford Station. The track is obvious and constructed almost the whole way. Difficult to get lost. (You can shorten this walk a bit at Bundeena by going inland, but I’ve marked it up keeping to the coastline the whole way.)
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).
A National Parks sign bearing the Lyre Bird symbol, on a sign with an arrow pointing at an actual Lyre Bird. Neat.
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
Some wave action. Marley Head and Marley Beach. One of my favourite cliff shots I’ve taken a few times when passing by this section. Various interesting rock textures on this walk. This spot isn’t accessed by the more popular shorter day walks. Looking north over heathland, with what I think is water spray creating a mist. Eagle Rock. I always feel obligated to take a picture of this. That’s a Gymea Lily in the foreground centre (no flower). Lunch on North Garie Head. View of Garie Beach from North Garie Head. Not often I get a shot of a Gymea Lily from on top, because they are so tall, but this was growing below a rock ledge. Era Beach Oh deer. Not native to Australia and no doubt competing with native animals like wallabies, deer are considered a pest and hunters are sent to shoot them from time to time. Not working that well it seems. Looking south towards the end of the walk. The sun was going down in the west, creating a gloomy shadow over the coast. Sophia in the palm jungle, posing in a position that I recently photographed her in when doing the Burning Palms portion of this walk. I obviously have limited creativity.
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.
Near the start. Wedding cake rock is about to divorce itself from the cliff line. Blue bottles washed up on the shore. Big seas all day. No filter used, just very colourful rocks. An unusual gorge down to the sea. Looking towards North Garie Head Garie Beach and Little Garie Beach.
