Somewhat surprisingly, this honour can be claimed by Australia – the Royal National Park just south of Sydney. Established in 1879 it beat Yellowstone in the USA by two years (it’s not clear who was copying who), although it wasn’t actually termed a National Park until a bit later. It now offers a green lung just outside the city, and a lovely two day coast walk which the crew of the VS could not resist.

Here is your correspondent, failing to resist the urge to relax after a hard day’s slog with a backpack. This is proper trailwalking, not like the soft NZ style – the campsite has no facilities at all other than a composting toilet, so everything has to be carried in and out, even water. The sand dune in the background is actually an aboriginal midden testifying to thousands of years of hunter-gathering along this coast:

 

 

Paramedics removing three young men who had been stupid enough to walk out onto the tidal rocks with a huge sea running. They were lucky to escape with severe contusions:

 

 

 

And a typical stretch of coast backed by untouched native forest:

 

 

A lovely walk.