The real outlaw trails: explore Australia's famous bushranger landmarks

How, as a country, do we look at bushrangers? Were they criminals or heroes? Were they adventurous or desperate? Are they to be idolised as symbols of the Aussie spirit... or were they just a frame of a specific time in history?

Whatever the answers (and they may not be so binary), the legends and mythologies of Australia's bushrangers have proved to be enduring. With the new Sidney Nolan exhibition opening this weekend at the Art Gallery of NSW, it is unsurprising that his series of Ned Kelly paintings is the focus - even though there are more than 100 other works that also tell the story of Australia, from St Kilda to K'Gari.

These stylised images of Ned Kelly may be iconic, but unlike the black helmet Nolan painted, there are lots of grey areas in the bushranger legends. Kelly and the others are not as two-dimensional as their portraits might lead you to believe. So, to understand more of their story, it's worth visiting some of Australia's most interesting bushranger sites.

It seems you can't throw a rock in northeast Victoria without hitting a Ned Kelly attraction. There's a reason they call it Kelly Country. The house where he was born in 1854 still stands in Beveridge, but you can't go inside. Instead, focus on Glenrowan, the town where he was captured that now feels a bit like a theme park with an animatronic reenactment, 6-metre statue, and multiple museums. Another must-visit is the gorgeous heritage town of Beechworth, with the courthouse where he once stood and the telegraph offices that transmitted the news of his manhunt.

Driving through the NSW Riverina one time, I visited the eerie Old Gundagai Gaol, where you let yourself in with a key from the visitor centre. One of the most famous inmates here was Captain Moonlite, also known as Andrew George Scott, and there's an exhibition about his exploits. But the real emotional weight is outside the gaol, at the town's cemetery, where Captain Moonlite is now buried after a campaign moved his remains there in 1995 to be next to fellow bushranger James Nesbitt, considered to have been his lover.

Most convicts at Port Arthur looked at the shark-infested waters around the prison and decided hard labour was preferable to being eaten. Martin Cash looked at the water and swam it... twice! Although he's most famous for his escapes from the Tasmanian penal settlement, he was also known for being polite during his robberies of homesteads, inns and mail coaches. He eventually died of old age (despite originally being sentenced to hang) and spent 10 years on Norfolk Island, so you can also add that to your bushranger sightseeing.

Frederick Ward was known as Captain Thunderbolt, but he was also called the 'Gentleman Bushranger' because he supposedly never shot a man (a low bar for manners in the 1860s). He committed his crimes across northern NSW and just south of Armidale, near Uralla, you can stop at Thunderbolt's Rock to see a cluster of massive granite boulders that was his favourite spot for ambushing unsuspecting coaches. You'll find his grave in Uralla itself, where local residents have erected a headstone in his memory at the Pioneer Cemetery.

One bushranger who escaped even more often than Martin Cash was Moondyne Joe, who got out of Western Australian lockups so often that authorities even built an "escape-proof cell" for him at Fremantle Prison. He still escaped (from the yard, not the cell) and you can visit the heritage-listed prison today to learn more about his story. About 90 minutes' drive away in Toodyay is the Newcastle Gaol Museum, which the local magistrate ordered built because he was sick of Moondyne Joe's escapes. It's full of history, with a visit transporting you back to life in WA in the 1860s.

Caught in 1902, Patrick and James Kenniff are considered to be Australia's last bushrangers. They were notorious for cattle theft in southern Queensland, first in the state's south and then later around Roma. A whole new police station was set up just to find them, which led to two people being murdered, supposedly by the brothers (although they both claimed innocence even after being sentenced). A hike through the sandstone wilderness of the Mount Moffatt section of Carnarvon National Park around Kenniff Cave helps you grasp how they evaded capture for so long in this rugged and brutal environment.