Sydney is well placed for days out, and — unusually for Australia — several of the best are reachable by train on an ordinary Opal fare.
The Blue Mountains — 2 hours
The one to do. Katoomba by train, then the Three Sisters, the Giant Stairway and the Scenic Railway, or the National Pass at Wentworth Falls — a track cut into the cliff face in 1908 and one of the best walks in Australia.
Trains from Central hourly on an Opal card. Take layers: it is often ten degrees colder than the coast.
The Royal National Park — 1 hour
The second-oldest national park in the world, gazetted in 1879, immediately south of Sydney. Rainforest gullies, beaches, and the Figure Eight Pools — rock pools on a wave-cut platform that photograph well and have caused a string of injuries when swell washes people off. Check the tide and swell before going anywhere near them.
The Coast Track runs 26 kilometres from Bundeena to Otford, doable in a long day or split.
Getting there: train to Cronulla and the ferry to Bundeena, or train to Otford or Loftus.
The Hunter Valley — 2 hours
Australia’s oldest wine region, making a low-alcohol, ageing Semillon that exists nowhere else. Do not drive yourself; take a tour or stay overnight.
The Central Coast and Newcastle — 1.5 to 2.5 hours
North by train along the Hawkesbury. The Central Coast has Terrigal and Avoca and quiet beaches. Newcastle, at the end of the line, is a former steel city with an excellent art gallery, an ocean baths, the Bathers Way clifftop walk and a good deal more going on than its reputation suggests.
Both on Opal.
The Southern Highlands — 1.5 hours
Bowral, Berrima and Mittagong — cool-climate country towns with gardens, antiques and good food. Fitzroy Falls and the Kangaroo Valley are nearby. Best in autumn.
Wollongong and the Sea Cliff Bridge — 1.5 hours
South along the coast, with the Grand Pacific Drive running out over the water on a cantilevered bridge round the cliff face at Coalcliff. Stanwell Tops above it is where the hang-gliders launch, and the view down the coast is the best on this stretch.
Train to Wollongong on Opal; the bridge itself needs a car.
Port Stephens — 3 hours
Dolphins, enormous sand dunes at Stockton, and quiet beaches. Long for a day trip and better as an overnight.
The Three Sisters problem
Coach tours to the Blue Mountains from Sydney are sold everywhere and cost many times the train fare for a schedule that gives you an hour at each stop. Unless you want a guide, the train and the local Explorer bus do it better and cheaper.
The exception is the Hunter Valley, where not driving is the point.
Practicalities
Opal caps apply on trains to Katoomba, the Royal National Park, the Central Coast, Newcastle and Wollongong, which makes those days very cheap.
Sunday has the lowest cap of the week, and it is genuinely worth planning a long train day around it.
Take water, a hat and sunscreen everywhere, and check bushfire and track conditions in summer — the NSW Rural Fire Service publishes current warnings.
Doing it without a car
Unusually for Australia, most of this list works on public transport. The Blue Mountains, the Royal National Park, the Central Coast, Newcastle and Wollongong are all on the Opal network with fare caps applying, which makes a day trip cost less than lunch.
What needs a car or a tour: the Hunter Valley (and there you should not drive anyway), Port Stephens, the Sea Cliff Bridge, and most of the Southern Highlands beyond Bowral.
Checking conditions
Two things to check before any bush or coastal day in summer:
Fire danger — the NSW Rural Fire Service publishes daily ratings and park closures. On a catastrophic day, national parks close and you should not be in them.
Surf and swell — for the Royal National Park’s coastal rocks and the Figure Eight Pools in particular, where people have been badly injured by waves washing across the platform.
Both publish live warnings and both are worth two minutes before setting out.
The whale season
From late May to November, humpback whales migrate along the New South Wales coast — north to breed and south again with calves. Around 40,000 pass Sydney.
They are visible from the headlands without any boat: North Head, South Head, Cape Solander in the Kamay Botany Bay National Park, and the coastal walks. Cape Solander has volunteers counting them in season.
Boat trips run from Circular Quay and Darling Harbour and have a good sighting record, though the free version from a clifftop with a coffee is hard to beat.