THE TOWNS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



281 



\\hich were described in a former chapter and to return to Goulburn by the coach-route. 

 Illawarra, the rugged strip of coast-land through which the cedar-cutters of half a 

 century back had to cleave their way then a dense jungle, but now known as the 

 " Garden of New South Wales " extends from Coalcliff on the north to Broughton 



Creek on the south. 

 Its principal town is 

 Wollongong, and 

 there are besides the 

 smaller centres, Bulli, 

 Clifton, Woonoona, 

 Figtree and Dapto. 

 The last - mentioned 



TI IIC ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL AT UOULBURN. 



village is close to the Illawarra Lake, on the shores of which is the home of William 

 Beach, one of Australia's ablest oarsmen and for long the champion sculler of the world. 

 There is no southern road from Sydney which keeps close to the sea, because the 

 great estuaries of Botany Bay and Port Hacking prevent it. But a road was laid out 

 in early days which crossed the George's River by a punt, about five miles from its 

 mouth, and followed the ridge of the Bottle Forest that lies between the valley of 

 Hacking Creek and the Woronora. This route fell into disuse, but it is now opened up 

 again by the railway, which for a considerable distance follows the old track. The more 

 usual journey by road has been from Campbelltown up to Appin, on the ridge that lies 

 to the east of the Nepean, and along it till the descent to the coast is made by the 

 Bulli Pass. The point at which the road emerges from the bush, and where the ocean 

 bursts first upon the view, is one of the most magnificent sights near Sydney. \Vebber's 

 Look-out a platform fixed on the edge of the Bulli Mountain, fully a thousand feet 

 above the waves which lash the rugged rocks beneath is a spot which tourists who 

 survey the scene beneath for the first time are loath to quit ; for after an eight-mile 

 drive through stunted and gnarled box-forest and bittern-haunted morass, the road comes 

 out suddenly, close to the crest of the coastal range, and the traveller finds himself near 



