The Illawarra Escarpment: The Green Wall Behind the City

The Illawarra Escarpment, rising abruptly from the coastal plain to the tableland more than 400 metres above Wollongong, creates the dramatic backdrop that defines the city's visual character and provides the green infrastructure that the Illawarra Escarpment State Conservation Area protects from development. The escarpment's profile, visible from throughout the Wollongong urban area, changes through the day as the light moves across the forested face and the clouds that form against the escarpment's barrier to moisture-laden Pacific air produce the drama that photographers and residents both appreciate.

Sublime Point, accessible by road from the Illawarra Highway, provides the elevated lookout that gives the most comprehensive view of the Illawarra coastal plain, the beaches that line the coast, and on clear days the blue horizon of the Tasman Sea beyond Wollongong's urban area. The lookout's popularity with visitors and the paragliders who launch from the escarpment face on appropriate wind days makes it one of the Illawarra's most visited outdoor destinations.

The walking tracks that traverse the escarpment face and the plateau above provide access to the subtropical rainforest communities that the escarpment's sheltered gullies support, with the waterfalls and the Gondwanan plant species that the escarpment's moist microclimate sustains providing the botanical and ecological interest that attracts the walkers, botanists, and photographers who use the track network. The escarpment's biodiversity, including threatened species that the dense urban development of the coastal plain has eliminated, makes its protection a conservation priority as well as a landscape asset.

The Wollongong Botanic Garden on the lower escarpment slopes, providing the transition between the urban fabric and the natural bushland above, serves as the accessible green space for the CBD population and provides the horticultural education and display functions that botanic gardens sustain. The garden's floral clock, its heritage buildings, and its collection of subtropical and temperate plants create the diversity of interest that sustains its role as a destination for local families and visitors.

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