Katoomba

In the cool climate of the Blue Mountains, this is a nursery built around plants that thrive where frosts bite and summers stay mild — shade perennials, epimediums, hellebores, galanthus, hostas, arisaemas and a long list of woodland and rockery specialities that rarely turn up at general garden centres. The focus is unapologetically horticultural: bulbs, corms and tubers, orchids, shrubs and vines, and a run of perennials for both sun and shade, all grown and dispatched as a mail-order operation from Katoomba. What sets it apart is Highfields, the display garden attached to the nursery, open by appointment and to bus groups year-round, where the plants can be seen doing what they do in the ground rather than just in a pot. It's the kind of place run on real plantsmanship — someone clearly obsessed with the more unusual end of the perennial world, from David Kennedy's namesake connection to the collection down to the granular plant lists covering everything from asarum to trillium. There's a working rhythm of plant fairs and seasonal events too, suggesting a place as much about community and knowledge-sharing as retail. For gardeners chasing something beyond the ordinary nursery bench, this corner of the Blue Mountains rewards the trip.

Directly opposite Katoomba station, this record shop has been trading vinyl since 1999 and treats the format as something to be maintained as well as collected. The bins run deep across rock, jazz, soul, blues, funk, reggae, folk, punk and the harder-to-file corners - soundtracks, world, classical, exotica - alongside 45s, ten-inch pressings, CDs and music books. A second strand of the business is hi-fi: refurbished amplifiers, turntables, cassette decks and speakers sit for sale, cartridges and styli are stocked, and audio repairs are carried out in-house. Staff are known for finding rare and out-of-print titles and for the condition of what they sell, and the shop actively buys quality collections and equipment. It reads less like a browse-and-go retailer than a working room for people who take listening seriously, a short walk from the tourist churn of Katoomba Street.