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.)


	On foot near Mollymook (left), a beach goer near Durras (right). Photographs by Mikkel Vang

But nobody comes to the southeastern coast in search of giddy cultural life: The bush is still in charge here. We could randomly choose any turnoff from the highway and have our own private sand dunes, with pounding surf and wallabies sunbathing by a lagoon, with an ancient mollusk midden as the only sign of human activity. At Ben Boyd National Park, I scanned north and south to see sea cliffs twisting one after another to the horizon. Absolute remoteness can be achieved in Croajingolong National Park: Roughly equidistant from Sydney and Melbourne at Australia's southeastern tip, its 220,000 acres of raw bush are a serious schlep.

There's no doubt that Croajingolong is ideal for camping—bush walkers revere an eight-day, 60-mile trail along its sandy, windswept edge, where the coastline is punctuated only by dramatic headlands and salty estuaries—but who could turn down a stay at Point Hicks Lighthouse, especially after the tooth-jarring 20-mile ride on the dirt access road? Until the track went through in 1954, the lighthouse keepers received supplies twice a year by boat. But it still felt like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as we bunked down in the original lighthouse keeper's quarters next to the whitewashed tower. I watched the sunrise from a chair made of driftwood, while offshore, fur seals frolicked on sea-battered rocks.



	GOOD ON YA, MATE: Cape Conran beach (Mikkel Vang)

Perversely, after a week of bushland luxury, I was feeling mildly frustrated. Every morning, I would emphatically declare that tonight we would use the tent—but by the time dusk rolled around, we had found yet another unique place to stay.

On the last night of the road trip, when we reached Cape Conran Coastal Park—a reserve so far off the beaten track that few Aussies have heard of it—I knew this was my big chance. Henry was already feeding our dinner steak to the kookaburras, and I was just rolling out the sleeping bags, when Lesley spotted a cluster of stylish cabins hidden among the trees nearby: the Cape Conran Cabins. It transpired that, for not much more than the price of our campsite, we could have our own personal wilderness lodge, with a private sand path to a beach 15 miles long.

"No, no, no," I insisted. "We've got to use the tent!"

I looked at Lesley. We both looked at Henry. Henry had already started for the cabins.

I knew when I was beaten; but it was a happy defeat. We were still deep in the bush, only with soft mattresses and running water. I spent the dusk hours lounging on the deck, grilling steak as monitor lizards prowled the tree trunks and fruit bats came out to play. The final perk? When our mud-encrusted car finally rolled onto the fashionable streets of Melbourne, I didn't even have to clean the ground cloth.

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