Central West

The Central West is an inland region in the Australian state of New South Wales, with parts of it being in the great widely known Outback.

Cities

The Central West of New South Wales has three cities:

• 1 Bathurst
• 2 Dubbo
• 3 Orange

The Central West also contains a number of smaller townships:

• 4 Canowindra
• 5 Condobolin
• 6 Coolah
• 7 Coonabarabran
• 8 Cowra
• 9 Forbes
• 10 Grenfell
• 11 Gulgong
• 12 Lake Cargelligo
• 13 Mudgee
• 14 Parkes
• 15 West Wyalong

Other destinations

• 1 Abercrombie River National Park
• 2 Coolah Tops National Park
• 3 Goobang National Park
• 4 Hill End - Former gold mining town
• 5 Warrumbungle National Park – Australia's first dark-sky park
• 6 Weddin Mountains National Park

Understand

The Central West of New South Wales contains some of the oldest cities on the inland side of the Blue Mountains. The area is known for its produce, including cold climate fruits and wines. It contains some of the best restaurants in New South Wales outside of Sydney.

The region is mainly farmland, and the main agricultural products are lamb, beef, and wheat.

The Central West includes the sub-region known as the Central Tablelands. It offers a variety of historical communities, culinary trails, outdoor art, sublime gardens and plenty of adventure-related activities.

Get in

Lithgow is at the foot of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and is accessible via either the Bells Line of road from Windsor or the Great Western Highway from Penrith. All drivers from Sydney to the area would take one of these two roads, and then travel west on the Great Western Highway and the Mitchell Highway to the other towns.

Lithgow, Orange, Bathurst and Blayney are all stops on the XPT train to Dubbo, and several flights (1 hour duration) from Sydney Airport to Dubbo operate every day.

Get around

The area has some public transport connecting most of the cities and towns. Several buses run between Lithgow, Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo every day, with a lesser number to the smaller towns. However, the only way to reach the many out-of-town attractions like orchards and wineries is by car.

See

Cowra Japanese Gardens

• The Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo.
• Mount Canobolas west of Orange. Mount Canobolas is the remnant of a volcanic plug, and is the highest point in the district. There are several quarter- and half-day walks on the slopes.
• The Japanese Gardens. In Cowra 

Eat

The area surrounding Orange is home to many orchards. The area produces cherries in summer and apples in autumn. It is the largest apple growing region in Australia. Many orchards have road-side stalls which sell in season fruit extremely cheaply. Locals buy apples by the bucket load and cherries by the crate.

In addition, because the area has much beef, many restaurants have particularly good meat dishes.

Drink

• Bathurst is a university city and has a very active pub scene populated mainly by university students
• The area surrounding Orange is known for its wineries.

Go next

Visitors to the Central West can travel easily to Canberra or Sydney, both of which are three or four hours away by car. Alternatively, visitors could travel further west into the Outback. The transcontinental Indian Pacific train travels through the region.