All aboard for the Cockatoo Run!
Download this page in PDF formatA splendidly restored, 1930s-vintage train is conveying tourists in style to the Illawarra Fly Treetop Walk, an elevated steel walkway that has become one of the NSW South Coast’s most distinctive manmade attractions. 
Carriage attendants on the train are dedicated volunteers. Climbing aboard is like re-entering the gracious Golden Age of railway travel, when conductors wore waistcoats, consulted pocket-watches and carried gleaming silver whistles.
Passengers can catch the train from Sydney or Wollongong – and if they do so in April they will receive a special bonus. Steam! Normally, the Cockatoo Run train’s restored, vintage 1930s carriages are hauled by a heritage Diesel locomotive. But on 18 and 26 April 2010 (the latter being the Anzac Day public holiday) a grand old steam engine will pull the train. The addition of steam, complete with smoke and sparks, will add magic to the trip for railway enthusiasts.
The train heads from Sydney Central Station to Robertson Heritage Railway Station in the NSW Southern Highlands on selected Thursdays and Sundays. Known as the Cockatoo Run, the journey uses the Illawarra Mountain Railway, built between 1927 and 1932. This stretch of track provides one of Australia’s most spectacular rail trips. Passengers enjoy buffet refreshments and grand coastal scenery as the train climbs 600 metres, past waterfalls and through dense rainforest, up the Illawarra Escarpment. The train makes a stop at Summit Tank to admire sweeping views over Lake Illawarra out to the Tasman Sea.
The trip costs $50 for adults and $40 for school-age children. A new train package, “Illawarra Treetop Flyer”, incorporates roundtrip travel from Sydney Central with entry to the Fly, located not far from Robertson. This costs $95 for adults and $75 for children. Discounts apply for families and larger groups.
The Illawarra Fly delivers the sort of panoramic outlook generally gained only from an aircraft or balloon. Perched among native trees atop the Illawarra Escarpment fringing the Southern Highlands two hours drive south of Sydney, the walkway consists of a 500-metre elevated steel walkway and canopy at treetop level. It stands among enormous blackwoods, gully gums, ferns and sassafras trees on a site 700 metres or so above sea level. In the middle of the walkway, the striking, 45-metre-high Knights Tower provides the most astounding vista of all. Illawarra Fly Treetop Walk general manager Sean Haylan calls this tower “the stairway to heaven”. For railway fans, heaven starts with steam.
