Discover cute limestone cottages, art deco cinemas, delicious produce, plunging waterfalls, mirror lakes, old German internment camps and some stunning flora and fauna on a trip around the NSW Southern Highlands towns.

We drove up the Hume from Melbourne and our first stop was at the iconic Ettamogagh pub which featured in the cartoon series Footrot Flats for years in Victorian newspapers. We pulled our van into the free camping paddock adjacent to the pub and headed to the pub for a simple meal out on the deck. The Ettamogagh Pub ‘mini village’ has seen better days – no doubt affected by Covid and is only open on weekends now and even then only small parts of it. Still it was free and a convenient half way stopover on the way to the NSW Southern Highlands.

Moss Vale

We stopped on the way to Moss Vale at the Sutton Forrest winery which you accessed by driving through the Caltex and Maccas off the Hume highway! An old Italian couple run this little gem and we bought a bottle of their chardonnay for dinner that night. Then we called in at the nearby Eling Forest winery for lunch in the cute late autumn leaf strewn courtyard and bought a bottle of their sparkling to drink for pres by the river (it was delicious!). Moss Vale has some nice art deco buildings, but it is an absolute nightmare to walk along the streets and shops due to the massive traffic streaming along the Illawarra highway. It’s also impossible to cross the street with only 1 pedestrian crossing and so we joined all the traffic and headed further up the Illawarra highway to Bowral.

Bowral- Mittagong

Bowral is a big country town with a big tribute to the greatest cricketer in the world – Don Bradman.  Jamie took a tour of the Bradman Museum then we drove up Mt Gibraltar and did the Rim walk which winds around the rop of the mountain and takes you between three lookouts – one looking over Bowral, the others over to Mittagogng. The lookouts show how the valley is being overtaken by huge factories and housing estates. Next, we called in to Mittagong which is a smaller town but also marred by lots of traffic. We stopped for a walk around Lake Alexandra reserve and saw lots of ducks, turtles and lizards.

Berrima

We stopped for the night at Berrima River reserve free campsite along the Wingecarribee River. This is perhaps the prettiest and cutest of the towns in the area with lovely limestone buildings and a couple of fancy restaurants. We took the delightful historic river walk and saw where the prisoners from the old German Internment camps built day cottages, built boats, and held regattas and made bridges to cross the river. They even built sunbathing modesty fences so they could bake naked on the warm rocks! There were beautiful wildflowers along the walk and lots of birdlife.

Exeter – Bundanoon – Fitzroy Falls

Exeter and Bundanoon both boast produce markets with some delicious chutneys, dumplings, French bread, and good coffee. Plus, some lovely crafts, clothing, plants and pottery. Well worth a trip to both, one held on Saturday the other on Sunday. Bundanoon is divided not by the highway but the railway, so you have to plan your navigation.  After the market we drove up to Fitzroy Falls but it was incredibly foggy and we could barely see the 81 metre waterfall so abandoned our plans to do the many walks in the area and kept going on to Lake Yarrunga to get out of the misty mountains and stay at the Bendeela Recreation reserve.

Bendeela Recreation area and Lake Manus Free Camps

Bendeela Recreation area is a massive free (for a booking fee) campground run by NSW water and is very popular – mainly for wombat watching or fishing in Lake Yarrunga – a water catchment supply for NSW towns. Around dusk dozens of wombats start wandering round feeding – paying no mind to the gawking tourists. At night they scratch their backs on the underside of the campervans and are so big and strong they caused ours to rock!

Lake Manus is another free camping area run by NSW water and boasts a beautiful lake you can camp alongside and watch stunning sunsets. They supply shelters, fireplaces, drop loos and picnic tables – best place we’ve stopped at!