The Return to Paradise cast on filming in New South Wales
Breathtaking scenery, bustling breweries and trendy bowls clubs — the Return to Paradise cast share what they love most about filming in New South Wales.
Ed Grenby - 21 October 2025
It’s not called Return to Somewhere Fairly Nice-ish, is it? No, the fictional Australian town of Dolphin Cove, where DI Mackenzie Clarke spent series one of Return to Paradise, is indeed “pretty heavenly”, says Anna Samson, who reprises the role in series two starting this week. Here, she and her co-stars Tai Hara (who plays her love interest Glenn Strong) and Lloyd Griffith (DSC Colin Cartwright) explain why…
The show is filmed in an area called the Illawarra, but that’s more than an hour outside Sydney. Is it worth bothering with?
Tai Hara Absolutely! It’s right next to the Royal National Park, you’ve got these incredible hills and cliffs at Stanwell Tops, and then there’s the amazing beaches. It’s all been a bit of a hidden gem, but in the years since Covid it’s really exploded. You’re far enough from the city that you can take a breath, but not too far – it’s the perfect distance.
Lloyd Griffith The train only costs a few pounds, it’s always on time – honestly, the Australian rail system makes a Brit like me weep – and it’s some of the most breathtaking landscape you’ll ever see from a train. It would really put Michael Portillo to the test.
Anna Samson Or drive it! They call it the Grand Pacific Drive, and there’s the most spectacular, sinuous, curvaceous bridge, the Sea Cliff Bridge. There are shots of it in the show, and lots of car ads are filmed there.
Lloyd Between 4 and 6am, when the sun rises there, it’s unbelievable.
You lost me at 4am…
Lloyd It’s worth it! If I’m getting picked up for filming at 6.30am, I get up at 5.30 so I can go to the local ocean pool. There are 15 or 20 of them in the area: open-air saltwater swimming pools where the seawater just comes crashing over into them. That was something I was blown away by, but the coastline, too – it’s just one long continuous run of insanely breathtaking beaches.
Tai Ocean pools are a quintessentially Aussie thing. You might not want to take your kids out into a crazy riptide, or maybe the sea’s just too busy, so you do the pool, and it’s a more gentle way to experience the ocean.
Anna There are the Northern Beaches as well, on the other side of Sydney. “My” house in the show is actually there, in Avalon. Those beaches are a bit busier, but they’re lovely.
Tai You’ve got history there, too. That’s where Home and Away was shot, and it was meant to be the location for Baywatch, too, till the locals kicked up a fuss because they didn’t want The Hoff hanging around.
Lloyd You’re the Aussie Hoff though, Tai. You’ve always got your top off. Me, I’ve asked if I can take my top off, but the director keeps saying no.
Are there other quintessentially Aussie things you can get up to in the area?
Lloyd When I first arrived in Australia to film series one, friends asked me if I fancied going with them to the local bowls club on Friday night. And I said, “No, because I’m not 84” – not realising that bowls clubs are different and a real part of the community.
Anna Yeah, everyone goes. There’s great food, great drinks. We all went to “barefoot bowls” at the Wombarra club, near where we were shooting that day, and it was fabulous. And of course, Aussies don’t call them “bowls clubs” – it’s “the bowlo”. I spent a bit of my childhood in a Sydney. suburb called Hazelbrook, and there was a bowlo near a service station there, so you’d just tell your mates to meet you at the “Hazo servo bowlo”.
What’s the food and drink like?
Tai There’s seafood, of course, and a lot of breweries in the Inner West area of Sydney, so we did a “brewery run” for Lloydie’s going-away party after series one.
Lloyd It wasn’t exactly a drinking contest between the Brits and Aussies – it wouldn’t be much of a competition, with the Aussies drinking these tiny little measures.
Tai That’s the great Aussie “schooner”, and they’re that size so your beer doesn’t get warm like it does with British pints!
Lloyd You have to hand it to the Aussies on their coffee though. It’s unbelievably good, and they take it very seriously. On set, there’s a whole department whose sole job is to make excellent coffee.
Anna That’s Mandy! She has saved the show a couple of times with her coffee. She should have her name above ours in the credits…
It’s not called Return to Somewhere Fairly Nice-ish, is it? No, the fictional Australian town of Dolphin Cove, where DI Mackenzie Clarke spent series one of Return to Paradise, is indeed “pretty heavenly”, says Anna Samson, who reprises the role in series two starting this week. Here, she and her co-stars Tai Hara (who plays her love interest Glenn Strong) and Lloyd Griffith (DSC Colin Cartwright) explain why…
The show is filmed in an area called the Illawarra, but that’s more than an hour outside Sydney. Is it worth bothering with?
Tai Hara Absolutely! It’s right next to the Royal National Park, you’ve got these incredible hills and cliffs at Stanwell Tops, and then there’s the amazing beaches. It’s all been a bit of a hidden gem, but in the years since Covid it’s really exploded. You’re far enough from the city that you can take a breath, but not too far – it’s the perfect distance.
Lloyd Griffith The train only costs a few pounds, it’s always on time – honestly, the Australian rail system makes a Brit like me weep – and it’s some of the most breathtaking landscape you’ll ever see from a train. It would really put Michael Portillo to the test.
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Anna Samson Or drive it! They call it the Grand Pacific Drive, and there’s the most spectacular, sinuous, curvaceous bridge, the Sea Cliff Bridge. There are shots of it in the show, and lots of car ads are filmed there.
Lloyd Between 4 and 6am, when the sun rises there, it’s unbelievable.
You lost me at 4am…
Lloyd It’s worth it! If I’m getting picked up for filming at 6.30am, I get up at 5.30 so I can go to the local ocean pool. There are 15 or 20 of them in the area: open-air saltwater swimming pools where the seawater just comes crashing over into them. That was something I was blown away by, but the coastline, too – it’s just one long continuous run of insanely breathtaking beaches.
Tai Ocean pools are a quintessentially Aussie thing. You might not want to take your kids out into a crazy riptide, or maybe the sea’s just too busy, so you do the pool, and it’s a more gentle way to experience the ocean.
Anna There are the Northern Beaches as well, on the other side of Sydney. “My” house in the show is actually there, in Avalon. Those beaches are a bit busier, but they’re lovely.
Tai You’ve got history there, too. That’s where Home and Away was shot, and it was meant to be the location for Baywatch, too, till the locals kicked up a fuss because they didn’t want The Hoff hanging around.
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Lloyd You’re the Aussie Hoff though, Tai. You’ve always got your top off. Me, I’ve asked if I can take my top off, but the director keeps saying no.
Are there other quintessentially Aussie things you can get up to in the area?
Lloyd When I first arrived in Australia to film series one, friends asked me if I fancied going with them to the local bowls club on Friday night. And I said, “No, because I’m not 84” – not realising that bowls clubs are different and a real part of the community.
Anna Yeah, everyone goes. There’s great food, great drinks. We all went to “barefoot bowls” at the Wombarra club, near where we were shooting that day, and it was fabulous. And of course, Aussies don’t call them “bowls clubs” – it’s “the bowlo”. I spent a bit of my childhood in a Sydney. suburb called Hazelbrook, and there was a bowlo near a service station there, so you’d just tell your mates to meet you at the “Hazo servo bowlo”.
What’s the food and drink like?
Tai There’s seafood, of course, and a lot of breweries in the Inner West area of Sydney, so we did a “brewery run” for Lloydie’s going-away party after series one.
Lloyd It wasn’t exactly a drinking contest between the Brits and Aussies – it wouldn’t be much of a competition, with the Aussies drinking these tiny little measures.
Tai That’s the great Aussie “schooner”, and they’re that size so your beer doesn’t get warm like it does with British pints!
Lloyd You have to hand it to the Aussies on their coffee though. It’s unbelievably good, and they take it very seriously. On set, there’s a whole department whose sole job is to make excellent coffee.
Anna That’s Mandy! She has saved the show a couple of times with her coffee. She should have her name above ours in the credits…
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