Canberra to Kiama

Saturday, 23 May 2015

Jervis Bay

Jervis Bay at Huskisson

Easts Beach, Kiama

Easts Beach, Kiama

Thursday night in Canberra was very rough, with strong winds and rain.  Fortunately, the awning had been retracted on Thursday afternoon, ready for our departure on Friday morning.  However, the forecast on Friday was even worse, with a severe weather warning of gale force winds, heavy rain and thunderstorms for the regions on the coast where we intended to stay.  It didn’t take long to make the decision to have another day in Canberra – just a quiet, rest day.

Saturday morning dawned clear and COLD; a chilling -2.8 degrees at 7.00 am.  With the car iced up, we weren’t in a great hurry to leave, so I took the opportunity to walking to the weekly Farmers’ Market being held in the showgrounds next to the caravan park.  It was a huge market, with lots of fresh produce, meat, fish, plants, bakery items, gourmet food and numerous breakfast stalls.  Needless to say, despite the cold there were plenty of people about even at such an early hour.

The road to Batemans Bay is very hilly and very windy, but the scenery was lovely and the forests quite beautiful.  This is the third time we have taken a caravan down Mt Clyde and the first time we have actually had operational caravan brakes.  This section is very, very steep and very, very windy!  We continued north through Ulladulla and ended up having a detour at one stage when we (foolishly) followed the rest area sign.  We ended up driving down a narrow, rough lane (no where to turn around) until we ended up in a caravan park!  Retraced our steps and continued to Huskisson, on the shores of Jervis Bay.  This was a lovely seaside resort, with lots of people enjoying the sun but unfortunately, the caravan park only had a couple of empty sites; we weren’t all that keen on being under a large gum tree and in deep shade.

We decided to continue to Kiama, driving through very green and lush paddocks.  I have to say that by the time we arrived at Kiama, I was really over hills and bends!  We are staying at Big4Easts Beach Holiday Park – an enormous park but the caravan section is very nice.  We have a very large, sunny, grass site (slabs are available but were probably by bit shadier), the amenities are great and it has absolute beach frontage.  Cat was absolutely thrilled when we were given a bottle of local wine and a jar of lollies when we arrived; being a Big4 Gold Member does have some advantages!