CULTURE
Royal National Park in Australia
Baku, November 11, AZERTAC
Royal National Park Australia was the country’s first official national park. Located in New South Wales, around thirty kilometres south of Sydney, ‘Nasho’, as the locals call it, was formally proclaimed on 26 April, 1879, making it second only to Yellowstone in the US as the world’s oldest national park. It was also the first to use the term ‘national park’. Despite its historical significance, it was only added to the Australian National Heritage List in 2006.
The five times NSW Premier, Sir John Robertson (1816-1891), founded Royal National Park NSW as part of his major land reform policies, including the Robertson Land Acts of 1861, which were designed to break the monopoly then held by squatters and open up the selection of Crown land. Originally known as just ‘National Park’, it was renamed ‘Royal National Park’ in 1955, in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s 1954 Australian tour. However, the closest she ever got to visiting the park was passing through it on a train travelling from Wollongong to Sydney during her tour.
Often called Sydney Royal National Park because of its close proximity to the capital city, it covers over 15,000 hectares and hugs Australia’s east coastline from the Port Hacking River (near Cronulla), which acts as the main northern boundary, down to its southern most tip at Otford, a northern suburb of Wollongong. Despite its national significance, ‘Nasho’ is only mid-sized, and practically tiny compared to NSW’s other famous attraction, the Blue Mountains National Park, which sprawls over almost 270,000 hectares.
Because of its coastal location, the Royal National Park attracts visitors for its secluded beaches, as well as bushwalking and biking trails, picnic grounds, camping grounds, rowboats on the river, and various swimming holes. Cliff jumping into the swimming holes is popular with locals, but not sanctioned by park management, and strongly discouraged due to safety concerns.