Crossing The Border
It was sad to be leaving Dalmeny, there was still so much we hadn’t seen. We hadn’t even had time to go to the pub with the “million dollar view”. Sam wondered how much the view from the Narooma Golf Club was worth and we decided it must have been at least $800,000. From now on, we’ve decided we are going to rate every place’s view according to its monetary value.
Speaking of views, Annette had suggested we visit a couple of worthwhile vistas on our way today. Our first stop was the Glasshouse Rocks, which could be viewed from the top of the cemetery hill. It’s amazing how much prime real estate on the south coast is occupied by cemeteries. Lots of towns have a sprawling hillside dotted with graves, with stunning views overlooking the coastline. (No wonder so many people are dying to get in there).
The Glasshouse rocks are striking in beauty, standing tall and proud just off the beach. Sam sent the drone up to capture the sheer magnitude of this natural wonder. We were the only ones there and had it all to ourselves. Next on the list of must-visits was the pretty seaside township of Mystery Bay, right on the edge of the Eurobodalla National Park. The beach is strewn with unique rock formations and from the headland we could see for miles, right out across the Tasman Sea.
I was in the driver’s seat today with Maisy riding shotgun by my side, choosing the tunes. Those in the back of the car were unusually vocal - backseat driving game strong - and we nicknamed Maisy the Front Seat Secretary, as she tried to cope with the tirade of demands from the rest of the family, from passing tissues and wet wipes, to opening the sunroof, closing the sunroof, adjusting the aircon, turning up the volume, turning down the volume. Maisy, for some reason, has set-up the Irish version of Siri on her phone and as she was providing the music today, all the GPS directions were coming at me in a sweet, and lilting but thick and indecipherable Irish accent that I was struggling to understand. After every “turn laift” or “teek thah nuxt uxit”, I’d look at Maisy with a quizzical expression and she obliged with a perfect interpretation for me. She was kept busy.
Our 224km trip was punctuated with stops along the way and when Irish Siri was taking a break, Ross was giving us a running commentary of what was coming up in each place. He was using his map to direct us to all the best views in town, though as we realised, the map doesn’t include dense shrubbery and tall trees. On at least one occasion, he was heard to be saying: “there’s a beautiful beach right down there, with a rocky outcrop just below us. If the trees weren’t there you’d be able to see it.” Curse those trees. We had to take his word for it.
By the time we reached the gorgeous town of Bermagui, (a name which Irish Siri had immense difficulty trying to pronounce) we were ravenous, so we split up into pairs and scouted for somewhere to get some takeaway lunch. There was a great vintage shop in the main street, a nice pub with a beer garden overlooking the ocean (a few hundred thousand dollars worth for sure) and plenty of potential pickings for lunch. As we all rendezvoused back at the car, Toby complained of a pain in his chest and lifted his shirt for Ross to inspect. An anxious cry of: “it’s some sort of animal!” and further investigation, revealed that like Maisy, Toby had been attacked by a terrible tick. Our Car Secretary provided some tweezers she had handily stashed in her bag and the little blood-sucker was removed. Though not quite “the size of a small dog”, as Toby attested, it was actually a pretty big tick. Luckily it hadn’t been there long and Rossco was able to remove it all in one piece.
Bermagui is also famous for its Blue Pool, an ocean pool built into the rocks where there was a natural rock pool already, nestled at the base of a dramatic rocky cliff face. It’s a steep descent down some stairs to reach the pool; its clear light blue hue living up to its name. Sam was originally the only one keen to take the plunge but he twisted Molly’s arm to join him and then Toby and Maisy saw how much fun they were having and donned their cossies too. Just off to the right of the pool, where a couple of ragged rocks jutted out of the water, Rossco spotted something black sticking up from the surface and realised it was seals! We counted about five of them and they were having the time of their lives rolling with the surf and getting tossed back and forth between the rocks. They were so playful. I grabbed Sam’s camera and tried to get as close to them as I could. I caught a flipper here, an outstretched tail there, some glimpses of a nose now and again but though I had sat there, camera poised for some time, those elusive little critters were so hard to catch. Ross and Maisy had joined me in my search and while my attention strayed for a few minutes, one of the seals scampered right up on top of the rock and sat sunning himself! By the time they called me over, he had dived back in. Bummer.
We have decided we really love the Sapphire Coast, as it’s referred to. The bottom, right-hand corner of mainland Australia (the South-East coastline for those of you who are more geography-minded) is absolutely stunning. The white sands of Jervis Bay have given way to more orangey sand, the further south we travel, and the cliffs and headlands with their red rocks and deep caves are just magnificent.
Ross had found a scenic, winding route to get us from Bermagui to Bega - along Dr George Mountain Road. It was a beautiful drive through state forest and national parks but we hadn’t bargained on 14kms of it being on a dirt road. Though our car is an SVU, it’s not a 4WD and the closest our rattly old trailer has come to a dirt road is at Kimbriki Tip. We entered with caution. One section that was being graded as we drove through was particularly tricky, big mounds of dirt up the middle to negotiate and not much margin for error with steep drop-offs on both sides of the road. As we came around one corner I could see something huge, parked right in the middle of the road up ahead but wasn’t quite sure what on earth it was. As we got closer, we could see it was a MASSIVE bird, like a vulture of some sort, sitting atop and feasting on some roadkill. That thing was HUGE! As our car approached, I was wondering how the heck I was going to avoid hitting it and envisioning the damage colliding with it might do, not only to the bird, but to the car, when suddenly… it lifted off. Like a giant dragon flapping its enormous wings, it almost blocked the sun as it whooshed upwards. I reckon it must have had a wing span of about 3m! Sam Googled it for us and discovered it was a Black Breasted Buzzard, “Australia’s craftiest raptor”. Yikes. That was a heart-starter!
Our trip to Bega was really only about one thing: cheese. Broome isn’t famous for brooms, Collector isn’t famous for collectors, Punchbowl isn’t famous for punchbowls but Bega is famous for Bega and you go to Bega to get Bega - that is, unless the Bega Heritage Centre and Cheese Shop are closed for renovations. What a downer. We did a drive-by of the Bega Cheese Factory and Cheese Training Centre (Maisy said she wasn’t aware you could train cheese) but with angry looking barbed wire fencing all around it, the place looked more like a prison than the home of delicious cheesy goodness we had imagined. Oh well, we’ll have to just go to Woolies to get our Bega cheese I guess.
Merimbula’s beautiful beach was our next stop and Sam flew the drone again for some more great shots of the coastline, followed by a walk around the coast at Pambula. Toby jumped on a swing overlooking a magical beach surrounded by red rocks and nestled amongst the trees only to be asked if he’d mind getting off to allow a lovely old couple to have a swing themselves. They wanted us to film them in the playground as a laugh for their grandkids. We happily obliged. Our new friends told us they had been married for 65 years! Hope I can still be that agile when I’m in my 80s.
Eden, the town with a rich whaling history and that now sports a whale tail on every building in town, was a gorgeous spot too. Sam noticed that Eden Marine High had even gone to the trouble of aligning its air conditioning ducts on the roof in the shape of a whale tail. That’s commitment. The lookout at the top of the hill provided an awesome view over the sea but alas, we didn’t manage to spot any whales.
A bit exhausted from a full day of driving and sight-seeing, we still managed some loud whistling and hooting as we crossed the border into Victoria late in the afternoon. Our modest cabin at the Shady Gully Caravan Park is very cute (*read: small). We reckon the entire cabin could fit snuggly inside the master bedroom at Stu’s place in Huskisson. Still, it has everything we need (except maybe enough power points or enough room to fit our bags in - all first world problems).
It was time to hit the town of Mallacoota for some dinner. Having installed the Service Victoria app, we masked up, signed in and seated ourselves at a table in the Mallacoota Pub (which advertised a “Parma and Pot” - don’t they mean a Parmi and a Schooner?) only to be told the kitchen was closed already. It was 7:38pm. We wouldn’t be partaking in either a Parma or a Parmi tonight.
The lady at reception at the Shady Gully had recommended Lucy’s Noodles for dinner, surprised I hadn’t heard of it and claiming was actually “world renowned”. Unfortunately Lucy’s also closed at 8pm. I guess Wednesday nights in Mallacoota are a bit slow. Luckily for us, the famous Lucy’s still had the light on and they squeezed us in for some quick noodles after all.
