No place like home - The Australian

The Walls of China in Mungo National Park at Willandra Lakes, NSW. Picture: NSW Tourism Source: Supplied

The Skywalk at Dorrigo Rainforest Centre in NSW. Picture: NSW Tourism Source: Supplied

AS the Australian dollar's relentless rise has made overseas travel even more compelling in recent years, my partner and I have bucked this trend and resorted exclusively to the domestic front for our holidays.

We've found local tourism to be the low-stress, easy option, while we've also been surprised and impressed by what we've discovered.

After regularly heading overseas during our 20s and 30s, the birth of our son three years ago has encouraged us to travel locally, while we've taken the opportunity to turn my book research and invitations to writers' festivals into family holidays.

We've now visited a string of destinations that seem just as interesting as those we've found offshore, without all the flying. Our domestic discoveries began five years ago when we were planning a holiday to the Dordogne region of France and instead we ended up in the mountains of Dorrigo in northern NSW. We could take only a couple of weeks' leave, so planning the Dordogne trip became difficult and tedious. The air travel would wipe out three or four days and numerous other hitches emerged.

At Dorrigo we found the Clouds End mountain-top retreat perched on the Great Dividing Range. As the name suggests, Clouds End really is like being at the top of the world, with sweeping views of uninterrupted forest cover stretching to the coast. The area is ringed by a chain of national parks and state forests that offer great potential for bushwalking and sightseeing.

Dorrigo, population 1500, was once a dairy town that now offers a mix of shops for the locals along with a smattering of stylish cafes and eateries. Our favourite was Dragonfly Cafe & Books, which happened to attract vintage cars on Sundays. One of them was an early 70s Citroen DS in mint condition. It felt just like being in the Dordogne.

We ventured down the mountain to the hippie centre of Bellingen, but in the end we preferred the quietness and quaintness of Dorrigo.

Clouds End is owned and operated by Beth and Kelvin Henwood, who bought the property 33 years ago "because we fell in love with the view", says Beth. The Henwoods built a residence out of second-hand and new bits and pieces and raised their children there.

The Henwoods say Clouds End attracts a steady stream of visitors who come back every couple of years, though they tend to be couples rather than families with children.

After Dorrigo we still leaned towards overseas destinations and planned a Pacific Island holiday. However, my partner was pregnant at the time and she couldn't get travel insurance, so we had to look locally again. We ended up at Lake Mungo in far western NSW, which was probably far riskier than travelling overseas in terms of its isolation.

We flew to Broken Hill from Sydney and hired a 4WD and drove through the outback to the ancient lunar landscape of Lake Mungo, where sediments deposited by wind over the past 100,000 years have preserved the richest single find of indigenous heritage in Australia. (It's possible to fly from Melbourne to Manildra, which is closer to Lake Mungo than Broken Hill.)

Lake Mungo is one of 17 dry lakes that make up the World Heritage-listed Willandra Lakes Region. The dry lake bed is a treasure trove of remains left behind by the Aboriginal people who lived on the shore of the lake for tens of thousands of years. It is strewn with middens of shellfish and even fossilised charcoal from fires.

It's also the home of some of the most important archaeological finds in Australia's history, including the 40,000 year-old Mungo Lady and Mungo Man, perhaps the most important human remains found in Australia. Mungo Lady is the oldest known cremation in the world, affirming the early emergence of humanity's spiritual beliefs.

For us, more impressive than this rich history were the local indigenous people who run the visitors' centre and look after the renovated shearing sheds that serve as accommodation for visitors without tents or caravans.

The facilities are jointly managed and run entirely by the Paakantji and Ngiyampaa people who now live in nearby towns.

Indigenous guide Tanya Charles was one of the proud and enthusiastic locals we met during our stay.

After this trip we were completely sold on the idea of local travel and we've discovered Queensland's Noosa, Western Australia's Margaret River and NSW's Mudgee wine region.

While researching my latest book, Mine-Field, in late 2011 and early 2012, I've been surprised by the stunning beauty of rural regions from the Darling Downs of Queensland to the Liverpool Plains of NSW. The major centres in these parts, such as Toowoomba, Moree and Gunnedah, are also rich in architectural heritage.

Driving through the Darling Downs one late spring afternoon I looked across a field dotted with countless rolls of hay after a bumper harvest, while freshly ploughed paddocks resembled a vast expanse of chocolate cake as they awaited the summer sowing.

Here was an oasis of rich black country on the most arid continent, and for a moment I could have easily been looking out on to fields in southern France or Spain.

During these travels I met Jeanette Wehl, a retired airline cabin attendant who operates Sugarloaf Mountain Country Retreat on the Darling Downs.

It's a family property that still runs beef cattle and, as the name suggests, it has its own mountain named Sugarloaf. As well as farm animals, Sugarloaf has a "family" of wiptail wallabies and migrating koalas.

"The regulars are small business owners who want to come because they can have that special time with their families," Wehl says, adding that while there's a lot to discover in historic Toowoomba and surrounding towns, most visitors tend not to travel far afield from the farm.

We will probably venture overseas again in the next year or so but in the meantime we'll be chilling out around Dorrigo.