Campervanning through Canberra

Time for another update on our travels through ACT (the Australian Capital Territory) and into New South Wales. Enjoy!

Friday 21st Feb: Cobargo to Batesman Bay

We kicked off the morning by calling in Benny’s Butchery for tonight’s sausages and tomorrow morning’s bacon and then hit the road for the day. Making our way up the south NSW coastline our first stop of the day was Bermagui to see the Blue pool, Camel rock, and Horse head rock. Easily one of the best decisions of the trip so far!

In the rocky cove around the corner from the pool we watched a dozen seals drifted lazily in the crashing waves for 15 minutes. As we readied to leave Chloe noticed movement on the horizon - a large pod of dolphins surfing the waves inwards towards the cove! We stayed watching the dolphins arrive for another 10 minutes before then taking our dip in the Blue Pool - a sea water swimming pool built into the base of the cliffs. A pretty magical start to the morning!

After our morning dip it was time to “rock hop” our way towards Batesman Bay by calling in at several scenic coastal spots along the way. The Horse Head and Camel rocks were just a short drive north of the pool and fully delivered on their namesake promise. However, the Glasshouse rocks later in the day didn’t quite live up to their name. Fortunately, the Australian rock saved the day and put a new spin on the shape-game: Australian rock is a large rocky outcrop with a hole in it shaped like, you guessed it, Australia.

The day wasn’t all rock hopping: we called into Tilba to see some quaint old shops and some delicious cheese, and in Narooma we sourced some tasty ice creams and visited the Breakwall brewery for a scrumptious orange sour beer. We topped off the day with a BBQ dinner in Batesman Bay, paired with a peach+coffee gose sour beer (1 down, 3 weird beers to go!).

Saturday 22nd: Batesman Bay to Canberra

Today was a day of culture and history! We drove from Batesman bay to Canberra: a pretty boring 2-hour drive but some great views of the Australia Parliament.

Our first stop was the Australian Mint. We went into the free museum and saw and read about the coins. We even saw a platypus… Sadly just on a coin! Next stop was the parliament building and gardens. The entrance hall to parliament was a HUGE marble area which was beautiful, but we forgot to take a picture, oops.

Next was some information about the Magna Carta and how despite being in it’s “new” case decades only the seal was delicate, we even saw it but no pictures were allowed. We went into the Senate and the House of Representatives, although the gum tree green was an interesting design choice! There was a LEGO even had sheep and lawn mowers on it. A cool fact, on the crazy flag pole the Australian flag which is flying is the size of a double decker bus.

Next stop was a walk down federal mall to the ‘Old Parliament House’ this was a much more fun museum with a lot of artwork taking the mick out of a whole heap of different political issues. Below are a few of our favourites. Upstairs took you round all the rooms of Bob Hawke (the last prime minister in the office) and the speakers. A fun look at past politics and a couple of dress up opportunities as well. Mike made a pretty serious member of the house whereas I think I was a more laid-back Judge!

At 5pm we were kicked out of the museum and made a spontaneous choice to head to the tidbinbilla nature reserve. We parked up at 6.45 after a quick fuel and food shop for dinner. We decided on a chicken and tomato pasta and cooked up a delicious dinner surrounded by wallabies bouncing. Our next stop: the Sanctuary Walk in the nature reserve to continue our platypus saga.

We walked to the first water hole and saw this giant platypus, but after a 5-minute watch we gave up knowing we had to be back at the van in 20 mins and the loop was approximately 30 minutes. Thankfully we found a little cut through so could spend some more time at the first watering hole as the elusive platypus had still been hiding from us.

We stood, we watched, we huffed for the lack of movement in the water and decided it was time to head back to the car, we had 12 minutes until the reserve gates closed and it was a 10 minute drive! Just as we turned away Chloe spotted some movement in the water. We stopped. We watched a little longer. Lo and behold there was a platypus! Not so easy to video or picture, they literally look like fleeting logs in the water but see if you can spot it coming up and down in this video!

We were feeling flipping chuffed and next thing you know a rustle in the grass/bark/leaves and a little bandicoot popped out to say good evening too. After literally running back to the car and a hi/sorry to the park ranger we were on our way out of the park. We still didn’t know where we were going to stop for the night, but in the end chose an RV stop. Who knows what it will be like but we will update tomorrow morning if we got any sleep!

Sunday 23rd: Canberra

An interesting night, the sound of the lorry hooning past at 90-100km hour finally turned into white noise and we both managed to sleep vaguely well. At about 7.30 Chloe went for a walk around the RAAF memorial area, built on the flight path of the WW1 planes. A lovely walk but ended with the first meeting of a huntsman in the bathroom. Those things are huge, and this one had the audacity to move as well, not the peaceful pee she was hoping for!

Our first walk in Canberra was up Mt Ainslie, it promised a short but steep walk and 360 views of the city. It didn’t disappoint and gave incredible views of the war memorial museum, Anzac Parade, along with both the old and new parliament buildings. By the time we got to the bottom we were both pretty hungry so headed to the Haig Park Village Market. It was a lovely little place, and we had the most delicious Butter Milk Date Scone. I also wanted the Mushroom and Blue Cheese pie but alas we were too late.

Our next stop was the War Memorial Museum. An interesting and humbling museum with some incredible dioramas of the Somme and Gallipoli. The Pool of reflection was surrounded by a roll of honour for the Australian Forces, it was a moving experience, and the eternal flame was thought provoking. There was also a huge room dedicated to the tomb of the unnamed soldier. The room was decorated with a mosaic of the 4 key forces and each section of wall had a massive stained-glass window showing a member of each force and a key word. The museum overall was having a huge amount of work to expand the already large galleries to allow for galleries of more recent wars such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The tanks and cannons outside were also incredible to look at, especially when we compared them to the ones from WW1!

Our final stop of the day, was Capital Brewing Co. We had tried a taster of their Blackberry Hard Lemonade at a previous brewery and so we wanted to get another one in. We shared a tasting palate a mix of Sours, Hazy and the Hard Lemonade to wash down the feast we had order from Brod Burger. A chicken, bacon and Avocado burger with blue cheese, Mac and cheese bites, a Slaw Dog and some chips! After 20000+ steps we were definitely hungry and had eyes bugger than our bellies! A lovely end to our time in Canberra and would recommend anyone visits (despite it’s boring reputation!).

Monday 24th: Canberra to Kangaroo Valley

A longer day of driving today as we make our way back from Canberra and towards the New South Wales south coast once more. As we left, we called in at a cracking little chocolate shop called Jasper and Myrtle for some tasty chocolate. They had about a dozen delicious variations, and we finally settled on a bar of roasted wattle milk chocolate, a bar of orange cinnamon and cayenne dark chocolate, and some chocolate coated pieces of ginger for mum when we meet up again in Sydney.

We broke up our drive with a quick stop off in Bungendore for a leg stretch and a back-of-the-van bite to eat. We visited the Bungendore wood factory to see a range of handcrafted wooden items: bespoke boxes of all kinds, ornaments, furniture, and even some art. Despite some impressive pieces the price tags were the most memorable thing in the shop! The next pitstop was Ulladulla to see the Warden Head lighthouse, have a cuppa, and a little bimble along the coastal track - we spotted some pretty cool aboriginal art along the way!

Our final big stop of the day was to see the Point Perpendicular lighthouse. Unfortunately, we hadn’t realised that this headland is governed by the MoD and periodically used as a firing range. Across the road we found the big red bollards saying “no access” and our plan was scuppered. Instead, we then visited the Beecroft rock pools - a nice consolation as we scrambled over them spotting small crabs and fish.

After a long windy drive into the hills and forest we arrived at the Bendeela campsite, and settled down for the night as wallabies and a wombat roamed the campsite.