Week 4: Blackheath NSW - Merimbula NSW

February 08, 2023

Week 4: Blackheath NSW - Merimbula NSW

Stats Overview

Km's Travelled: 877

Km's Hiked: 22

No. of Camps: 4

The Adventures

This week has been our week of highlights and beautiful surprises. We are really glad that we didn't plan too much of our trip in advance as we have found some incredible places that we would not have planned to visit.

We started the week in the Blue Mountains staying at the small town of Blackheath. We were really lucky to have some amazing weather while we were there which meant we were able to get out and about and explore the beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, large parts of the park were closed which limited the types of walks we could do while we were there. However, we were still able to get out and about and hike to some incredible lookouts. The Blue Mountains have some of the most beautiful views we have ever seen!

We started our exploring in Lithgow and visited an unexpected highlight which was their Small Arms Museum. We did not know this, but Lithgow has a history of manufacturing guns for Australia. They produced over 400,000 weapons during WWII and still manufacture and do some weaponry repairs for the Australian Armed Forces today. They had a lot of different weapons there from the very old to modern. They also had 1500 hand guns on display which were donated to the museum from a private collection. Will's mind was blown seeing all the different types of handguns they had and my mind was blown that a person in Australia could legally own 1500 hand guns!

We also did a day trip to Katoomba to visit the Three Sisters and Scenic World. Scenic World was a lot of fun! They have the worlds steepest railway, a cable car and a skyway ride which meant we were able to see the view from lots of different angles. We also got to see a lyrebird there which was very exciting! After spending the day in Katoomba we were definitely glad we had stayed at Blackheath as it is much quieter (Katoomba really is a tourist trap!) and the views are just as good, if not better! To finish our stay in the Blue Mountains we got up very early in the morning and went to watch the sunrise at one of the lookouts. Of course we had to choose the coldest and windiest morning! However, we got to watch some incredible colours before we ran back to the car to defrost as the "feels like" temperature according to the BOM was -1.

From the Blue Mountains we headed down to Goulburn to visit the Big Merino before camping at the small community of Majors Creek for the night. It was a really windy and cold day with the temperature reaching about 16 degrees when we were in Goulburn. They also were having wind gusts of up to 50km/hr. We struggled to make our lunch when our plates, cutlery and food kept being blown off the table! The wind struggle continued when we set up camp as it was too windy to put the awning out, which meant we had no protection for our kitchen. When we tried to cook dinner our gas burners kept being blown out! We ended up having to create a little tent out of one of our privacy screens so we could put it over the stove to try and keep the burners from blowing out! We were very worried we were going to go up in smoke, however, we did successfully cook our dinner without any incident. We have since then decided we will eat out in the future if the weather is that bad again!

We then decided to go back to the water and headed for the Sapphire Coast. We were originally thinking of going to Batemans Bay but some of the locals at Majors Creek told us there were better places we could go see! We decided to head further south to Bermagui, and were glad we did as it has some of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen! The water is crystal clear and there are so many incredibly beautiful rock pools to explore. We first went to find the Horse Head rock which looks like a horse trying to drink from the ocean. We could only access the rock along the beach at low-tide by climbing over lots of rocks and trying to avoid ending up in the water! The walk there was actually stunning and we explored so many rockpools on the way back to the carpark. We thought the horse rock was really cool - although it may have just been the endorphins and adrenaline from the journey there that made us see it! You will have to look at the photos to judge it for yourself! We also went for a swim at the Blue Pool which is a large, natural rock pool that has been turned into an ocean bath. The water is definitely on the "refreshing" side here, however, the locals keep commenting to us that it is such a nice temp. They clearly have never been for a swim in Queensland before!

We decided there was more to see on the Sapphire Coast so we have headed a little further south and are currently near Merimbula. On our way we went through the town of Bega, where we of course stopped for some cheese! Merimbula has a lot of beautiful lookouts along their cliffs and also has a large number of oyster farms in their estuaries. We have really enjoyed our time on the coast are a looking forward to exploring Eden tomorrow which is apparently a "jewel" of the Sapphire Coast.

Kodak Moments