Murramarang South Coast Walk (34km)

Along a long stretch of the New South Wales south coast, Murramarang National Park brings together surf beaches, rocky headlands and forest in a way that feels unusually intact. The park sits between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay and follows about 44 kilometres of shoreline, so even where there are small settlements nearby, the broader impression is of a continuous coastal landscape. That scale matters on the ground: beaches are backed not by a narrow fringe of vegetation but by substantial bushland, lakes and steep slopes that keep the coast feeling wild.

One of the park's distinctive features is the way spotted gum forest runs down towards the sea. In many parts of coastal New South Wales the shore is edged by lower scrub or more fragmented woodland, but here taller forest remains a strong visual presence, with burrawangs and pockets of rainforest adding to the sense of depth behind the beaches. Durras Mountain supports some of the best developed rainforest south of the Shoalhaven River, and sheltered gullies and moist slopes create a marked contrast with the open rock platforms, dunes and salt-laden headlands out on the coast.

The park also sits within a wider coastal system of lakes, creeks and marine waters. Durras Creek's catchment is mostly protected within the park, and to the south and offshore the coastline adjoins Batemans Marine Park, linking forest, estuary and sea rather than separating them into neat zones. That helps explain the variety of birdlife and coastal habitats across the area, from beach and headland country to wetter forest near lagoons and lake edges.

At Murramarang Point, just outside the national park itself, the adjoining Murramarang Aboriginal Area protects a place of exceptional cultural importance. It contains the largest complex of middens on the NSW south coast and evidence of long occupation extending back into the Pleistocene. Read together, the park and the Aboriginal area show this coast as more than a scenic strip between towns: it is a connected cultural and ecological landscape, with deep human history set alongside one of the most substantial protected sections of the South Coast shoreline.