Goulburn

Everyone knows Goulburn from the highway: the Big Merino looming over the service centre, climbable, and unembarrassed. But Australia's first inland city rewards the exit ramp. Its streets are a catalogue of colonial ambition, from the grand courthouse to a cathedral worthy of a capital, and its Historic Waterworks still runs a Victorian beam engine on steam days. Twenty minutes east, the ground simply drops away at Bungonia, where abseilers descend one of the deepest gorges in the country. Stop for the sheep. Stay for the plunge.