A couple of weekends ago, almost on a whim, we packed our bags for an overnight backcountry track down in Royal National Park. Uloola Falls Track. It’s not along the coast, but more inland, where the brush is overgrown, so much so that we pretty much have to walk with our hands in front of our faces, pushing off the leaves and tree branches in our faces. Once or twice, the path narrows so that we think we’ve wandered down the wrong trail. But every once in a while, we emerge from the thick undergrowth to large slabs of rocks into the bright sunshine, for a glimpse of the shimmering ocean beyond and the shrunken Sydney skyline in the north.

It was a short weekend hike, easily accessible by train from the city. Nice and quick little getaway.