Your in luck! Both the 2nd Bn AIF and the 17th Bn AIF recruited from the Hunter Valley and North Coast districts. In fact, just to confuse my previous post even more, the 2nd Militia Bn and the 17th Militia Bn amalgamated after the war to become the 2nd/17th Royal New South Wales Regiment (2nd/17th RNSWR), which is a part-time Reserve unit, because both these Bns shared the same recruiting catchment. 2nd/17th RNSWR bears no relation to 2nd/17th Bn AIF.
See Tobruk,
Alamein ,
Kokoda and
2/17RNSWR for some more info.
Google searches on these will turn up a lot more.