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Parks and wildlife
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Throughout the state there are magnificent
national parks
and wilderness areas. Before European settlement, the
northeastern
corner of New South Wales was covered by dense subtropical rainforest. It's this that you can visit along the escarpment of the Great Dividing Range, though often only the very edge of these national parks or forests can be reached by road or track, while the interior is accessible only to hardy bushwalkers. These forests are inhabited by many types of parrots, and occasionally by bell birds and bower birds, brush turkeys, and marsupials such as ringtail possums, bandicoots and padimelons.
Further south
, the slightly higher altitudes and the plateaus are dominated by eucalypt forest with a more open canopy, and by less-dense eucalypt woodland - the preferred habitat of wombats, wallabies, other types of possum, koalas and a few small marsupials, as well as echidnas and platypuses, kookaburras, magpies and parrots. The
Snowy Mountains
are covered by snow gums, a slow-growing, cold-resistant eucalypt, and in the summer clusters of delicate wild flowers cover the mountain hillsides and meadows. Where the forest is not protected, lumber is still big business in NSW, and is the source of fierce clashes between environmentalists and the towns that make their living from the timber trade. To the
west
, kangaroos, wallabies and emus roam the wide plains, and with a bit of luck a wedge-tailed eagle can be sighted. Parks here tend to encompass vast areas of desert or places marked out by extraordinary geological formations. The far southwest corner is part of the
Mallee
- a sandy, semi-arid area covered by the eucalypt shrubs that lend the area its name. Here the mallee fowl build the incubation mounds for their eggs in the sand.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has entrance fees to many of its parks - usually $6-15 per car and $4 for motorcyles (often on an honour system when there is no ranger station). If you intend to go bush often in NSW you can buy an annual pass for $60 ($30 for motorbikes), which includes all parks except Kosciuszko. Because of its popularity as a skiing destination, entrance to Kosciuszko is a steep $15 per car per day, perversely levied in summer too - so if you plan on spending any length of time here, or are going to visit other parks as well, consider the $80 annual pass which covers entry to all parks, including Kosciuszko. Passes can be bought in person at NPWS offices and some park entry stations, over the phone using a credit card (tel 02/9253 4600 or 1300/361 967) or online at www.npws.nsw.gov.au ; you can also download an order form at this site and send it by fax (fax 02/9251 9192) or by mail (include your vehicle type and its registration number) to the National Parks Centre, PO Box N429, Grosvenor Place, NSW 1220.
You can
camp
in most national parks. Bush camping is generally free, but where there is a ranger station and a designated campsite with facilities, fees are charged, usually around $6 per site. If the amenities are of a high standard, including hot showers and the like, or if the spot is just plain popular, fees can be as high as $18 per tent. Open fires are banned in most parks and forbidden everywhere on days when there is high danger of fire, and while there are often electric or gas barbecues in picnic areas, you'll need a fuel stove for bush camping. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Australia,
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