Our last stop in New South Wales is in the beautiful coastal town of Eden. The combination of lakes, beaches and rugged cliffs provides a range of different walks for us to take.

We locate ourselves at a caravan park that is nestled nicely between the upper beach of Two Folds Bay and Curalo Lagoon so both sunrise and sunset are available for our viewing pleasure.

 

Eden is the last deep water haven on the coastline before you hit Bass Straight and is a bail out point for yachts competing in the Sydney to Hobart.

Its a protected and safe natural harbour where the wharf area is undergoing a series of upgrades to accommodate larger ocean liners in an effort to bring cruise ships to the area. It makes for interesting conversation as this town still shuts its doors at noon on Saturday. We are not sure what passengers of cruise liners will do on shore if they arrive late Saturday or on a Sunday.

The weather has been quite variable so we need to time our outings to make the most of breaks. We are lucky enough to have a sunny morning to walk the cliff top on the Eden headland and take a couple of photos before the sea mist starts to roll in. With the photos taken, we are heading back up the track from the cliff when I notice a man in the window of the Marine Rescue Control Tower waving at us. He gestures for us to come up and join him for a while, I think mainly to relieve his boredom as there is not much going on.

His name is Ian who is a volunteer and has the most spectacular view from his office even with the mist. With Stacey and I being the inquisitive types, we pester him with questions about everything from sea mist to shipping channels and the harbour upgrades. He has a wealth of knowledge of the area and entertains us with his views while listening out for marine radio messages and watching a large ship enter the bay. We are thankful for the opportunity to see the Control Tower in action and realise that we have been in his presence for over half an hour.

Sunday sees us head into the country to a small town named Wyndham west of Pambula. The country markets catch Stacey’s attention so we browse what might be the smallest market we have been to during our entire trip. From Wyndham we are heading back to the coastline when we see a turn off for Mt Wolumla. It turns out to be a fire trail that starts well but has rough sections and obstacles like fallen trees. We follow it for over twenty kilometres where we crest the mountain and find a radio and fire observation tower that provide brilliant views from the mountain ranges through to the ocean. Well worth the effort given the Jeep is running street tyres not really suitable for much more than light four wheel driving.

Our last day in Eden is spent wandering the towns of Merrimbula and Pambula as well as the local lakes in the area. Our time on the south New South Wales coastline has been an eye opener as we haven’t been in this region before. We feel that while we have seen a lot, there is still much more to enjoy and will endeavor to return sometime soon.

Off to Victoria next to see what it has to offer…