The Friendly Inn, Kangaroo Valley

The pub is on the main street and it is where most days in the valley end up. The bistro runs to pub standards rather than pretensions, steaks and schnitzels and seafood with a blackboard on top. The beer garden out the back is the part people talk about, because it faces the escarpment and gets the last of the sun on it.

The useful detail if there are children in the group is that the playground out there is covered, and there is a pétanque court beside it. That combination turns a cold afternoon into somewhere you can actually sit for two hours.