Australia: Driving from Sydney to Melbourne

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Outside Traveler Winter 2005

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Australia's Southeast Coast
Lost Coast, Found (cont.)


	STAIRWAY TO PARADISE: the path to Salmon Rock, far off the beaten track in Cape Conran Coastal Park (Mikkel Vang)

This had been obvious from the moment we rolled the car into the lavish Paperbark Camp. We contemplated the prospect of driving to a regular campground, laying out our little tent, and rustling up some dinner—say, pasta and canned sauce. But an hour later, we were kicking back in the open-air restaurant over a bottle of Tasmanian chardonnay.

"Not bad for camping food," Lesley said as we worked our way through the Aussie cheese plate—Milawa blue and cloth-bound Pyengana cheddar, with muscatels. When it comes to modern Australian cuisine—a fusion of Asian and Mediterranean styles, using local ingredients such as yabbies (crustaceans), wattles (prawns), and emu prosciutto—reading a menu can require both a map and a gastronomic dictionary.



	LUXE HELPINGS: the newly chic Bannisters Point Lodge (right); Aussie cuisine au courant (left) Photographs by Mikkel Vang

We couldn't have gotten closer to nature if we'd parachuted into the outback. There we were, unwinding beneath the Southern Cross and listening to cicadas while a trio of plump ringtail possums cruised the restaurant's railings, watching with saucer-shaped eyes as Henry consumed every bite of dessert. Posted on our bathroom door was a helpful illustrated guide to the local panoply of venomous snakes, which had names like punk-rock bands—copperhead, death adder, red-bellied black. Our next morning's workout was to paddle a canoe along Currambene Creek, the tranquil green waterway that runs three miles east to Jervis Bay's sugar-white sands.

"We could choose any turnoff from the highway at random and have our own private sand dunes, with pounding surf and sunbathing wallabies."

The memory of Sydney began to recede with every click of the odometer. South of Jervis Bay, the Princes Highway traces a coastline of national parks with tongue-twisting Aboriginal names like Wadbilliga, Murramarang, Eurobodalla, and Coopracambra, and small fishing or farm villages called Ulladulla, Tilba Tilba, and Nowa Nowa. This place feels like a lost world, with remnants of dagginess surviving in the townships. In Bermagui (mile 242), abalone divers nurse their beers in the same frayed pub where western author Zane Grey relaxed after a deep-sea fishing trip in 1936. Farther south, in Eden (mile 310), the main attraction is the Killer Whale Museum, home to an impressive orca skeleton.

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