Road trip from Jinabyne to Merimula, Bateman’s Bay, Mollymook and back to Canberra…
…in the unexpectedly hot sun.
Cover image: View from walk between Merimbula and Bateman’s Bay.
- Jindabyne to Merimbula on The Snowy River Way. A good road to take.
- Stayed in a large room at the Summerhill Motel with a washer-dryer.
- Lovely dinner at Bar Monti.
- Merimbula to Bateman’s Bay.
- Went for a walk at Wallagoot Gap (picture below) on the way.
- Stopped at Narooma for some fruit and a rest (looked like a nice place to stay).
- But we were heading further up the coast to Bateman’s Bay where we stayed at the [Esplanade Motel’(https://www.esplanade.com.au/), which felt more like serviced apartments (with noisy people overhead).
- Very good Wagyu Burger at JJ’s at the Marina.
- Bateman’s Bay to Mollymook.
- Walk at Ulladulla Wildflower Reserve with an excellent information sheet for flower identification (updated each season by the volunteers there).
- Stayed at Bannister’s Pavillion (dreadful website). Good room and breakfast.
- Rick Stein at Mollymook (another dreadful website) for dinner: this was good, but not as good as the meal I had years ago at Rick Stein’s restaurant in Padstow.
- Mollymook to Canberra: a nice drive, sometimes lacking in views because we were driving through a forest.
- Stayed at Avenue Hotel, which I’d recommend with a great breakfast, parking (book direct for this for free) and vouchers towards dinner (which we used to great effect). The location worked well for us and they responded well when we had an issue with our room (although we ended up fixing it for ourselves).
- Dinners at BentSpoke Brewing (excellent, so we visited the following night just for a drink), Yakitori 38 (a quirky izakaya) and the final night in the hotel at Marble and Grain which was good, but don’t take away our wine unless you’re going to pour it when needed!
- Visited the National Zoo and Aquarium which has more big cats than I’ve ever seen before (including lions, tigers, cheetahs and a leopard), all looking pretty comfortable in their large green enclosures.
- Then a walk to and around the Australian National Botanic Gardens the following day, plus an additional walk to a viewpoint from the carpark (across the road). The start of the track is a little difficult to find, but the walk is relatively easy and the view is worth it.
I’ve got a lot of photographs from the trip, of views and flowers. I still don’t know whether I want to collate these online anywhere… so at the moment they’re just for me!
