When Lieutenant James Cook claimed New South Wales for Great Britain in 1770, naming it after a land that he'd apparently never visited - and to which it bears strikingly little resemblance - he could have hardly foreseen what would become of it. And indeed the early years, of penal settlement and timid encroachment into the fringes of the coastal area around Sydney, were hardly a promising start. But with the discovery of a passage through the Blue Mountains in 1813, the rolling plains of the west were opened up. Free (non-convict) settlers - squatters - appropriated vast areas of this rich pastureland, making immense fortunes off the backs of sheep. When gold was discovered near Bathurst in 1851, and the first goldrush began, New South Wales' fortunes were assured. Although penal transport ceased the following year, the population continued to increase rapidly and the economy boomed as fortune-seekers arrived in droves. At much the same time, Victoria broke off to form a separate colony, followed by Queensland in 1859. The much-reduced borders that New South Wales has today were defined in 1863.

There are over a thousand kilometres of Pacific coastline in New South Wales, from subtropical Tweed Heads in the north to temperate Eden in the south. The year-round mild climate, together with the ocean and the beaches , draws visitors pretty much all the time - though it's the summer holiday season that brings thousands of Australians to the coast to enjoy the extensive surf beaches and the numerous more sheltered waters, in bays, river mouths and inlets, and in a series of salt lagoons or "coastal lakes", protected behind a narrow spit from the force of the ocean waves. South of Sydney the coast is relatively undeveloped, and there's a string of low-key family resorts and fishing ports, great for water sports and fishing. To the north the climate gradually becomes warmer, and the coastline more popular - the series of big resorts up here includes Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour , but there are also less-developed places where you can escape it all. One of the most enjoyable beach resorts in Australia is Byron Bay , which is just about managing to retain its slightly offbeat, alternative appeal, which radiates from the still-thriving hippie communes of the lush, hilly North Coast Hinterland . We've also included in this section of the website the Pacific islands far off the north coast of New South Wales: subtropical Lord Howe Island , 700km northeast of Sydney and roughly parallel to Port Macquarie, and Norfolk Island , 900km further northeast and actually closer to New Zealand, inhabited by the descendants of the mutiny on the Bounty .

The Great Dividing Range runs parallel to the coastline - often very close - splitting the state in two. In the north, the gentle New England stretch of the range comprises tablelands ideal for sheep- and cattle-farming; where this plateau falls away steeply towards the coast are some of the few remaining pockets of dense - at times impenetrable - primeval forest : the Big Scrub that drove the early settlers to despair. To the south is the Australian Capital Territory where Canberra , the nation's capital and a city struggling to shed its dull image, is the gateway to the Snowy Mountains . Here the range builds to a crescendo as Mount Kosciuszko (Australia's highest at 2228m) marks the peak of the Australian Alps. In winter there's skiing here, but the mountains are perhaps even better in summer, when the national park that covers most of them offers some unbeatable hiking. Unsurprisingly, it's not so warm up in the mountains of the Great Dividing Range: in summer the cooler days and the drop in temperature at night offer a welcome respite from the coastal heat and humidity. In winter, however, it can be genuinely freezing, with snow even falling near the Queensland border in Tenterfield.

West of the range, rich agricultural country gradually fades into desert-like Outback regions where the mercury can climb well above the 40A°C mark in summer, while mild winter days are followed by very cold, frosty nights. West of Canberra, between the three rivers of the Murrumbidgee, the Darling and the Murray (the last dividing NSW from Victoria), is the fertile Riverina . Beyond New England, the flat, black-soiled plains of the northwest head through cotton country to the opal-mining town of Lightning Ridge . It's a uniquely Australian experience to leave Sydney, cross the extraordinarily scenic Blue Mountains and be gradually sucked into this vast emptiness, where the " back o' Bourke " is synonymous with the Outback. The mining settlement of Broken Hill , almost at the South Australian border, is the obvious destination, a gracious city surrounded by the desert landscape of Mad Max and home to the classic Outback institutions of the School of the Air and the Flying Doctor Service.

New South Wales still has a fairly extensive rail network, although Countrylink ( www.countrylink.nsw.gov.au ), as it's called, has replaced many services with buses. A one-month $274 unlimited NSW Discovery Pass will get you just about anywhere in the state on this system (call tel 13 2829 for reservations).