Road Trip

After leaving Melbourne, we headed on our road trip along the coast back to Sydney. It was full of little towns each with their own story, national parks, beautiful coastline and beaches, native animals, and tons of cattle, sheep and farm country with million dollar views of the ocean.

1. Portsea/Sorrento – a cute little holiday town on the end of the Melbourne bay. We just stopped for the morning to see the town and the Great Southern Ocean. The town sits on a peninsula so it has a nice bay beach as well. The Great Southern Ocean is beautiful and leaves some neat rock formations along the coast but it is very cold and the winds off the ocean are tremendous.
   
2. Wilson’s Promontory – A small national park on the south coast. Again, strong winds and cold oceans. The views of the surrounding islands were pretty and there was some small bushwalks. We spotted five wallabys, a mess of kangaroos, three wombats, and some lorikeets. One of the best spots was Squeaky Beach, where the sand was white, the water was teal blue, and the sand actually squeaks when you walk.


3. Day 2 brought a lot of driving but we made a few stops to see Ninety Mile Beach and Lakes Entrance. Ninety Mile Beach is well…ninety miles of beach on the south coast. One thing that we've noticed about Aussies is that they aren't too creative with their names of things. If a road is called Wallaby Way or Kangaroo Pass, there is an excellent chance that you will run across a few of the little guys. Ninety mile beach is backed by huge sand dunes which protect the inlands from the southern winds. Lakes Entrance as you can guess connects a bunch of lakes to the ocean. It is is a small holiday fishing town.


4. Eden – Quite an interesting story about this little town. We arrived a bit late in the evening and decided it was best to find our campsite and get the camping gear all set up before heading into town to grab some dinner. Being a novice at the whole camping thing, Jared forgot to bring a hammer to pound the stakes in the ground. After watching him struggle for a minute, our Aussie neighbor came over and offered his hammer, however being a typical guy, he politely turned down the offer (dumb dumb dumb). After another ten minutes of watching him struggle with the stakes as well as battling the wind, the Aussie decided he got his fill of laughing at us and brought over his hammer (such friendly people - sometimes it seems like Aussies take an oath at some point in their life that they will always ensure that tourists are enjoying their country). After our ten round bout with the tent, we were quite hungry, so we decided to head into town. After driving up and down the street a few times, we finally realized that "downtown" was probably too big of a word for the village that we were in. We soon realized that our only option for dinner that night was going to be the Eden Fisherman's Club. The sign outside said visitors welcome, so we figured we were good to go... so so wrong... We walked in and soon realized that we stood out like a sore thumb. The Club was booming though and since we were already inside, there was no turning back. We haven't quite figured out if it was booming because of the food and atmosphere or because it was the only joint in town... We're leaning towards the latter... The guy at the door immediately realized we weren't locals, so he politely let us know that we needed to join the Fisherman's Club (annual fee = $5). Since we live more than 17K from Eden, we were able to get temporary memberships and have our first year's membership fee waved. We even got membership cards, so we're official. Eden was a delightful small town surrounded by a huge bay called Twofold Bay. In its heyday, Eden was a famous whaling town and now houses a Killer Whale Museum, Old Whaling Station, and Whale Watching Tower which we found very interesting. The museum included many interesting stories, whale skeletons and bones.


5. Ben Boyd National Park – Now that we hit the east coast, the water and weather were a bit warmer. Ben Boyd Park is a small park with beautiful beaches and rocky coast. We took some bushwalks to see The Pinnacles which are red and white colored rock formations along the coast, Long Beach where we found huge amounts of great seashells washed up on shore, and Haycock Point overlooking the coast. We also saw a huge lizard at the park (about the same size as us)...not sure what these are called.


6. Pambula Beach - Pambula beach had beautiful blue inlets and long stretches of beach. It is also known for seeing kangaroos but we were there at mid day when the kangaroos aren't out.


7. Merimbula – Merimbula is known for its huge bay with turquoise waters. It had great shops, cafes, and galleries. We spent some time at the beach and looking around the town. We found an great Oyster House just outside of town, which was our first decent meal in a few days.


8. Mimosa Rocks National Park – A small national park with a rocky coast and a few inlets. We went on a few bushwalks to the coast and found some great sea shells but the views didn’t compare to our other stops.


9. Bega – Bega is a small dairy town known for the Bega cheese factory but it is a little off the coast. We picked some some Tasty cheese, but didn't stay to tour the factory.


10. Tilba – Tiny town set in the middle of rolling hills with a historic cheese factory, cafes and great shops including a woodworking store and art galleries. It was one of our favourite stops. We did a tasting at the cheese factory and picked up two of our favorites to bring home. It was some of the best cheese we've had, it was hard to pick just two.


11. Mystery Bay – Mystery Bay is a small rocky beach which is supposed to be great snorkeling but the water was a bit cold to get in that day. The beach was beautiful to see at least.


12. Narooma – Narooma is also a fishing town but has great beaches as well. You can also spot some fish and stingrays off the boardwalks. We spent the first day on the beach and exploring the town but we stayed an extra day to take a trip to Montague Island known for their fur seals, grey nurse sharks and little penguins. We saw a few dolphins along the way and then went snorkeling off the boat and seals came right up to us to play. They spun around you and flipped all over.


13. Murramurang National Park – This park had everything...beaches, animals, rocks, bushwalks. As we were going further north the water was getting warmer. We stayed at a beautiful eco resort and our cabin was right on the beach. We could hear the sound of the ocean as we fell asleep. There were a ton of kangaroos that are not afraid of you and you can get within 10 feet of them. The kangaroos come out to the beach and grassy lawns around dawn and dusk to feed. We also spotted some in the forest on our bushwalks during the day.


14. Jervis Bay - A resort area just south of Sydney with a beautiful bay known for its dolphins. We were able to spot a few in the bay from the land but we just stopped for lunch at a little town called Huskinson on the bay which had a great variety of good food. We definitely want to come back and spend more time in this area since it is so close to Sydney.


15. Kiama - A small town just south of Sydney. It also has some great beaches but it is famous for its blowholes. The larger blowhole wasn't at its peak performance as there was barely any wind that day (it can get as high as the lighthouse) but the little blowhole was quite consistent although it doesn't get as big.


16. Seacliff Bridge - We took a scenic route home instead of the highway. This route went along the coast and there were some great lookouts along the way. The seacliff bridge is part of this road and is actually a bridge that had to be built out above the water because the original road along the rocky cliff became too dangerous with falling rocks.

While the trip was fun we are so happy to be back in Sydney and off the road.