Grand Pacific Drive & Royal National Park Drive Pack | The Stable

The Grand Pacific Drive is Sydney's most spectacular coastal escape — a 140-kilometre route from the Royal National Park to Kiama that combines cliff-edge driving, ancient rainforest, and the iconic Sea Cliff Bridge in a single magnificent journey.

The route begins in the Royal National Park — the world's second-oldest national park (after Yellowstone), established in 1879. The park's coastal track passes through heathland and rainforest to hidden beaches accessible only on foot: Wattamolla, Burning Palms, and the extraordinary Figure Eight Pools, carved into a rock platform by millennia of wave action.

From the park, the road climbs the Illawarra escarpment — a 300-metre cliff line that runs for 60 kilometres along the coast. The views from Bald Hill Lookout, where hang gliders launch into the updraft, are among the finest on the Australian coast. Below, the Sea Cliff Bridge curves around the cliff face in a 665-metre arc of engineering elegance — the most photographed road structure in Australia.

South of the bridge, the road descends to the coast through Wollongong — a steel city reinventing itself with craft breweries, Vietnamese restaurants, and a revitalised harbour. Beyond Wollongong, the Kiama coastline offers blowholes, rock pools, and dairy country that rolls to the sea in emerald waves.

This is a route that works as a day trip from Sydney or a two-day escape. The driving is accessible — no mountain passes, no gravel — but the scenery is world-class.