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Sydney has many great attractions and should be seen but if challenge is too great or you have been there before and are heading elsewhere, here is a route that we used through Sydney in a north/south direction in October 2003, which we found very successful. That is, no accidents, not too much traffic and no arguments between driver and navigator!

We left beautiful Upper Hunter Valley town of Murrurundi (approximately 77km south of Tamworth) at 7.35am and headed towards Sydney along New England Highway heading for Sydney to Newcastle Freeway passing through Scone, Muswellbrook and Singleton before turning off at Branxton for Cessnock.

We reached Sydney-Newcastle Freeway via West Wallsend and Freemans Waterhole at 10.20am. (Travel time Murrurundi to Freeway entrance of 2 hours 45 minutes including stops totalling 20 minutes)

We purposely chose this time to travel to get though Sydney in middle of day as opposed to peak hours.

The trip down Freeway to Sydney's northern suburbs is very straightforward, make no turns, take no exits. Along way there are some great views, particularly near Hawkesbury River and through towering cuttings in solid sandstone with bridges built at seemingly precarious heights.

Let fun begin

We arrived at end of Freeway at Wahroonga at 11.20am, 1 hour after joining it to north. At this point you can either take exit to Pacific Highway and travel into city centre over Sydney Harbour Bridge or under harbour in Sydney Harbour Tunnel.

The route described here avoids city centre and travels in nearly a north-south direction using major arterial roads about 16km to west.

We continued on straight ahead ignoring Pacific Highway exit and travelled to very end of Freeway at first set of traffic lights you should encounter and about 500m after Pacific Highway exit.

Route 7