Riverstone

On the Cumberland Plain, about 65km north-west of Sydney in one of NSW's fastest-growing areas, Riverstone is close to the developing Rouse Hill Regional Park, which will eventually cover 150ha. Thousands of native trees indigenous to the plains have been planted in an attempt to restore the area to something like its original condition after 200 years of devastation by European settlement. The park was part of the territory of the Deerubbin Aboriginal people who hunted wallabies, kangaroos and possums in the woodland and caught eels, tortoises and waterfowl along the creek. You'll also find bush-walking and horse-riding trails, picnicking areas and roller-blading and cycling tracks in this people-friendly park. Just up the road from Riverstone is the historic town of Windsor - one of the oldest settlements in Australia. It's here that you'll find Australia's oldest church. St Matthews, which was designed by Australia's best-known early colonial architect Francis Greenway and built by convicts in 1817. Greenway, a ticket-of-leave convict championed by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, also designed the court house at Windsor.