Chilling out with simple pleasures and scenic treasures on the New South Wales Sapphire Coast.
Outstanding natural beauty and simplicity of lifestyle are the key to the seductiveness of the Sapphire Coast, that spectacular stretch of Australia’s eastern seaboard between the NSW fishing port of Bermagui and the Victorian border. Like its namesake gemstone, the far south coast is a jewel, a landscape of clean, golden sands, rocky cliffs and headlands washed by indigo sea, fringed with lagoons and lakes, state forest and national parks.
This is definitely a stress-free zone, largely devoid of crowds and heavy traffic outside major holiday periods. The coastal resort town of Merimbula, 420km south of Sydney (580km from Melbourne), certainly reflects the importance of tourism to the local economy, yet it’s fair to say that nothing to date has really upset the region’s tangible “bliss balance”.
Stroll along crunchy, oft-deserted sands, wander riverside tracks or explore the wilderness of Ben Boyd National Park and you soon grasp why the closest settlement of any significant size was named Eden. This is beautiful country – a fact not lost on many Victorians, who recently have staged a small migration north across the border.
The coastline hugging Twofold Bay and the port of Eden is inextricably linked with the whaling industry and more recently with whale watching. Eden’s museum houses the skeleton of Old Tom, one of a pod of killer whales that enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with whalers during the 1920s. The whales herded the prey – baleen whales – into the bay and helped the whalers kill them.
Down on Eden Harbour, fishermen mend nets and prepare their boats for sea. The recent government buy-back of fishing licences to reduce commercial activity along the coast is a subject of much intense debate. The local trawling fleet has shrunk from 14 boats to six.
Visiting cruise ships now inject energy into the economy. During the past two cruising seasons (November-March) nearly a dozen have dropped anchor in Twofold Bay with big spenders on board buying up local art and craft and seeing the sights. Tours often include lunch at the Seahorse Inn at Boydtown just south of Eden, Owned by a Sydney developer since 1975, the inn has 10 luxurious suites, two restaurants, a bar and conference facilities. Benjamin Boyd was a 19th-century London stockbroker with grandiose ideas for south coast development.
In 1843 he began building Boydtown on the shores of Twofold Bay, hoping it would become the country’s capital. By 1849 he faced financial ruin and operations ceased. The inn as well as Boyd’s Tower, built on the southern headland of Twofold Bay as a lighthouse and later used as a whale lookout, are the two remaining structural reminders of the bold entrepreneur’s intentions.
Energetic visitors can strike out along the Light to Light walk, a 30km coastal track linking Boyd’s Tower with the Green Cape Lightstation in the south of Ben Boyd National Park. The lighthouse has accommodation in two cottages sleeping a dozen people. Standing on those windswept cliffs it’s easy to imagine that much of this wild coastline is identical to 100 years ago. Today’s scenic marvels were probably equally appreciated by our grandparents.
The lighthouse guards Disaster Bay, appropriately named for its litany of shipwrecks. Nine vessels are recorded lost there since the City Of Sydney steamer in 1862, including the SS Ly-ee-Moon, which lost 71 passengers after hitting a reef near Green Cape in 1886.
Disaster Bay may not seem a positive brand name, but it grabs the attention, just as the products bearing its name grab your tastebuds. Chilli wine is a drop you must taste to believe. The recipe came from a bushie called Old Didler. This sweet, golden wine with a distinctly fiery kick is made by Stuart Meagher and John Wentworth in their factory in a converted abattoir on Eden’s outskirts. They harvest nine varieties of organically grown chilli. From picking to bottling takes about a year. The wine and various condiments are sold countrywide and online (and also in Harvey Nichols stores in the UK).
Having warmed your appetite, drive north to Pambula for lunch at Wheelers Seafood Restaurant and Oyster Farm where chef Adi Pinkerton heads a brigade doing justice to marvellous local produce. Restaurant owner Hugh Wheeler has been an oyster farmer for 27 years and bivalves are a signature dish –presented in a variety of styles. Pinkerton shows a deft touch – the seasonal menu may include banana prawns, baby octopus, crayfish, crab, roast duckling and chicken. Combine an oyster farm tour with a superb long lunch. Bookings are essential.
Merimbula is the tourist heart of the Sapphire Coast, with all types of holiday accommodation and abundant water-based fun on surrounding tidal lakes and beaches. You can fish directly off the town wharf or see what’s living underwater at the aquarium in the wharf’s old cargo sheds, where there’s also a popular restaurant.
A short drive north is the National Trust-listed Tathra Wharf, the only coastal steamer wharf left on the NSW coast. It’s also a magnet for anglers hoping to hook tailor, snapper, flathead, yellowtail and leatherjacket. The wharf houses a maritime museum and restaurant-cafe with gift and tackle shop. Anyone wishing to glean local expertise and try reef or deep-sea fishing can join a charter cruise, available in most south coast settlements.
Suzy Hacker’s Tathra Beach Pickle Factory is just across from the sand. From humble beginnings in 1994, she now sells products nationwide and exports to several countries. Her garage “factory” has a retail outlet called Pickle Factory Plus, selling vinaigrettes, chutneys and jams along with breads, olive oils, boutique dairy products, small goods and Fair Trade items, as well as serving Toby’s Estate coffee. On the hill above the wharf, Bega Dried Foods specialises in additive-free dried fruits.
Mogareeka Inlet, at the northern end of Tathra Beach, is known for windsurfing, kayaking, waterskiing and seasonal wading for prawns. Similarly safe family recreation is also available at Wallagoot Lake in Bournda National Park, south of Tathra. A walking track runs along the coast between Tathra and Tura Beach. The south coast hinterland has a wealth of artistic talent. The Art, Fine Food and Natural Wonders Trail between Tathra and Bermagui features galleries, a winery, an excellent restaurant and a boutique ecotour operator. It begins at The Essential Object, a gallery by Tathra Beach, and heads north to Narek Galleries, housed in a late 19th-century church at Tanja. A few kilometres beyond is Ivy Hill Gallery with its wonderful gardens. The nearby Wapengo Art Studio and Georgina’s Cucina make a double act, comprising painter Peter Storey’s studio and the Tuscan-influenced “kitchen art” of Georgina Adamson, whose restaurant overlooks Wapengo Lake. When not at the stoves, she leads gourmet tours to Europe.
Mimosa Wines at Bunga harvests albarino, verdelho, tempranillo and chambourcin, grape varieties well-suited to coastal conditions. Sapphire Coast Ecotours is beside Murrah lagoon and runs guided walks in coastal habitats in and near Mimosa Rocks National Park.
The pioneering Bilyara Gallery and cafe is just south of Tathra off Sapphire Coast Drive, near Wallagoot Lake in Bournda National Park. Ed and Mary Davis opened their splendid gallery 19 years ago in a building set deep in bushland. Ed tells me bilyara is an Aboriginal word for eaglehawk, a bird celebrated in the garden with a piece by metal sculptor Richard Moffatt, whose pelican sculptures grace the Merimbula waterfront. For Aboriginal art visit Umbarra Cultural Centre near Wallaga Lake. You can see historic photos of the reserve, learn about the local Yuin people, see spears and boomerangs being made and learn how to throw them. Umbarra conducts Gulaga/Mumbulla mountain tours and lake cruises.
Central Tilba, north of Bermagui in Eurbodalla Shire, is the south coast’s closest thing to a theme village. It’s listed by the National Trust and its historic buildings house shops and galleries stuffed with arts and crafts. There’s also an award-winning cheese factory.
The rough diamond is the Dromedary Hotel. Regular patrons are gnarled, scarred, earthy individuals who might be direct from those ripping yarns so popular in early Australian literature. Few visitors can resist dining in the dim glow of the corner jukebox, rubbing shoulders with the Australian vernacular.
Refinement is only a couple of kilometres down the road in Tilba Tilba, where Green Gables bed and breakfast is run by Stuart Absalom and Philip Mawer. The former temperance hall is now devoted to guest comfort and indulgences, including a hearty cooked breakfast. The house has three double bedrooms. Directly opposite is Foxglove Spires, an open woodland garden created by Sue and Peter Southam, who moved into the 100-year-old farm cottage more than 20 years ago. There’s an adjacent commercial nursery, gift shops and a cafe.
Pelicans and seagulls are the main wildlife attraction unless you venture out to sea. Montague Island, 9km off Narooma, is one of the few “haul-out” sites along the NSW coast for Australian and New Zealand fur seals. Thousands of nesting pairs of little penguins also breed on Montague along with shearwaters and crested terns. Island tours are operated regularly by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and you can arrange to sleep in a heritage cottage directly beneath the lighthouse. Tours and accommodation are booked through the Narooma Visitor Centre near the town centre. There’s free admission to the Lighthouse Museum next door.
A good reason to head north of Narooma is for lunch at Tuross Head, at the Pickled Octopus Seafood Cafe. Chef Greg Ferguson cooks splendid seafood feasts in a marvellous setting on the shore of Tuross Lake. Diners have views across the water to the privately owned Horse Island. It’s the place to eat the freshest fish, gutted and cleaned on the wharf below, then cooked to perfection, accompanied by fine white wine. Whoever said “dead casual” can’t have class?
Eat & Drink
Dromedary Hotel
5 Bate Street, Central Tilba.
+61 2 4473 7223.
Georgina’s Cucina
2109 Bermagui-Tathra Road, Wapengo.
+61 2 6494 0194.
Website
Merimbula Wharf
Restaurant & Aquarium Lake Street, Merimbula.
+61 2 6495 4446.
Pickled Octopus Seafood Cafe
930 Trafalgar Road, Tuross Head.
+61 2 4473 6084.
Wheelers Seafood Restaurant
162 Arthur Kaine Drive, Pambula.
+ 61 2 6495 6089.
Oyster farm tours
Mon-Sat 11am.
+ 61 2 6495 6330.
Website
Zanzibar Cafe
Market & Main Streets, Merimbula.
+61 2 6495 3636.
Bega Dried Foods
5 Beach Street, Tathra.
+61 2 6494 1995.
Disaster Bay Chillies
35 Government Road, Eden.
+61 2 6496 4145.
Website
Mimosa Wines & Cottages
2845 Bermagui-Tathra Road, Bunga.
+61 2 6494 0163.
Website
Tathra Beach Pickle Factory
37 Andy Poole Drive, Tathra.
+61 2 6494 4232.
See & Do
Eden Killer Whale Museum
+61 2 6496 2094.
Foxglove Spires
Corkhill Drive, Tilba Tilba.
+61 2 4473 7375.
Sapphire Coast Ecotours
+61 2 6494 0283.
Website
Tathra Maritime Museum
Old Cargo Shed, Wharf Road, Tathra.
+61 2 6494 4062.
Umbarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre
+61 2 4473 7232.
Stay
The Seahorse Inn
Boydtown Park Road, Boydtown.
Green Gables
269 Corkhill Drive, Tilba Tilba.
Green Cape Lighthouse
Book via Merimbula NPWS office.
+61 2 6495 5000.
Art
Bilyara Gallery
89 Wallagoot Lane (off Sapphire Coast Drive), Bournda.
+61 2 6494 1559.
Website
Essential Object
65 Andy Poole Drive, Tathra.
+61 2 6494 1747.
Narek Galleries
Old Tanja Church, 1140 Bermagui-Tathra Road, Tanja.
+61 2 6494 0112.
Website
Ivy Hill Gallery
1795 Bermagui-Tathra Road, Wapengo.
+61 2 6494 0152.
Source: Qantas The Australian Way April 2008
Updated: August 2008