Bathurst

Every October, Mount Panorama-Wahluu roars. The rest of the year, it's a public road, and you can steer your own car around the Chase and up Skyline, sixty kilometres an hour of pure imagination. Down the hill sits Australia's oldest inland settlement, where the country's first gold rush kicked off in 1851: explore its museums, meet the T-rex at the Fossil and Mineral Museum, wander streets of grand Victorian buildings, and go underground at Abercrombie Caves. History with a soundtrack of V8s.