I was pleasantly surprised by New South Wales. I wanted to have a Birthday weekend away and it turns out I was spoilt for choice. No matter which direction I would choose to head in, I could stumble across something great. After getting the insiders knowledge from Captain Ross, I decided that south, towards Jervis Bay would be the way to go.
We’d barely busted through a hours’ worth of driving and we were already a little bit spoilt.
Driving through the heart of Royal National Park
South of Sydney you can drive through the bush that is Royal National Park, which also affords great views and a taste of authentic Australian nature. Despite only being spitting distance from Sydney.
Cruising the Grand Pacific Drive
Little did I know, but the Grand Pacific Drive was hiding en route. Up there as an extremely picturesque seaside drive, it is surely on par with your Norway’s Atlantic Drive, California’s State Route 1 and Key West’s Overseas Highway. I’d scratch it up as being not too far off the mark, especially in terms of an awesome feat of engineering, delivering beautiful, scenic views.
Grand Pacific Drive offers walkway along side part of it
Our first night was to be in the town of Kiama. A name I still find myself unable to pronounce properly (key-ama? ke-ama? Kai-ama?), but lovely nonetheless. AirBnB came up trumps as ever and we had a great room in a welcoming, family home (with the most fabulous bath tub!).
Hands down my favourite thing about Airbnb is the local insider info you can gain from staying with local people. These hosts didn’t disappoint and had already compiled a brilliant fact file of knowledge for us to browse, so we could decide what to see.
One of the many lovely beaches we found, south of Sydney
That said, when Rob and I go on holiday together, our greatest asset is both of our loves to just drive somewhere randomly. We are believers of the “lets look a map and see what’s at the end of a road” ethos. It’s rarely failed us so far and we’ve cranked up a fair few kilometres with that logic!
Kiama was no exception, we enjoyed a car picnic in the drizzling rain and saw some lovely views of the dramatic coastline, being pounded by rough seas.
Kiama Blowhole
Undeniably the highlight was the blowholes though. I’ve seen the odd blowhole in the past, but these definitely “blew” all of the others out of the water..
Rob & I in Kiama, with the Little Blowhole!
In Kiama its self we found an irresistible swimming pool, fed by seawater, but nicely cornered off from the rough seas. Our only worry was the concern that maybe something lurked in the semi-natural-semi-manmade rock pool, but thankfully there was enough people in it to relieve our concerns and feel safe that they would get tickled by a tentacle first.
The slightly overcast weather didn’t dampen our spirits to leap in
Next on our hit list was exploring Jervis Bay. Except following our “lets see what is down the end of this random road” logic we found ourselves at a beach near a place called Wollumboola. It was a long, idyllic stretch of beach and ocean. During our morning of splashing, exploring and lolling in rock pools, we saw all of about 4 people.
Deserted Wollumboola beach
Before heading back to Sydney, we made sure to stop by Husskison, the heart of Jervis Bay its self, which was as equally idyllic though filled with far more people than our remote spot in Wollumboola.
Finding random inlets just outside Husskison
As ever, we made a very important tasty lunch stop.
Delicious lunch at 5 Little Pigs in Huskisson
As one last treat, we managed to squeeze in a little Sydney activity too, in the form of a hike up to Barrenjoey Lighthouse.
The view from Barrenjoey Lighthouse in Northern Sydney
All in all, a very successful road trip with my bestie!
Rob & I on the Grand Pacific Drive
For more photos check out my Instagram feed
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