Beyond the blowhole

Take local advice. Many tourists arrive in sea-kissed Kiama and head straight for the lighthouse and its famed adjacent blowhole, reputed to be the largest in Australia, where compressed air can project water up to 30 metres into the air. However, people who know the town and its rolling green environs well are keen to offer further insights into this coastal gem of the Illawarra region, just 90 minutes’ drive south of Sydney.

At Greyleigh, a splendidly restored late-19th-century homestead that now accommodates 10 self-catering guests in the big house and six more in an adjacent guesthouse, managers Erica Warren and Michelle Higgins begin their recommendations with a tour of the property, with its beautiful gardens and panoramic views to the ocean on the northern horizon. The paddocks in the foreground are dotted with soaring cabbage tree palms, which the traditional Dharawal people arrived with tens of thousands of years ago. In those days, the landscape was a vastly different rainforest known as the Illawarra Brush, which extended from Jamberoo