Our first white kangaroo seen at Merry Beach
I think the weather god must have heard our whinging over the past week about the rain we have had to deal with because our two days at Merry Beach was perfect – chilly nights, no rain and daytime temperatures of around 26C. Merry Beach is in a small bay on the NSW coast comprising mainly holiday homes and a motor camp. Kangaroo and wallaby wander around the camp at will as does the local duck population.
Because we do not have that far to go to get to Canberra by Christmas, Merry Beach is the second stop in a row where we have stayed more than one night. Taking longer stopovers has given us the opportunity to do some serious walks around the area and to take advantage of the sights in the local National Parks. One of the big differences we noticed in this area compared to the others we have visited since arriving in Australia in June, is the number of flys. If one stopped moving for just a second, flies would be onto you in the millions. Still, it is what it is and we are having a brilliant experience.
More shots of our Merry Beach visit HERE .
We departed Merry Beach on Friday (in the rain) and continued our journey south. Again we had no plan at the start of the day of where our overnight stop would be. Many travellers had told us that the New South Wales coastline is one of the best in Australia so we are making a point of stopping in at most of the ‘signature’ beaches and Parks on our way.
On Friday we travelled along the Princess Highway calling into the coastal villages of Durras, Long Beach, Broulee, Batemans Bay and finally settling at North Head, which is about 8km out of Moruya. Moruya is the hub of the Eurobodalla and is famous for its markets, fishing, antique shops and fine food outlets. Speaking of markets, Moruya has a Saturday market. Guess where we were on Saturday morning?
Chuck and Ali, along with Bruce and Lyn, overnighting with us at North Head, Moruya.
On Saturday afternoon Rod’s brother Chuck and wife Ali from Canberra joined us for the afternoon. After a few wines (and a couple of ‘rumbo’s’) they ended up staying with us in the van overnight. It was great to catch up with them and bringing each other up on the ‘family’ news.
One of the downsides of our motorhome is that you need a heavy traffic licence to drive it and in Australia there is a zero blood alcohol tolerance in terms of day-to-day driving. Obviously this is a good thing but the down side is that it prevents us from going into any wineries and both of us participating in tastings – until we heard about Tilba Valley Wines.
Overnighting at Tilba Valley Winery
The Tilba Valley Winery is about 40km south of Moruya (or 360km south of Sydney) and has low cost camping ($6) amongst the vineyards that the vintners have made available to wine tasters and diners. The campsite is also on the edge of Lake Corunna. Sooooo, Sunday morning it was our normal casual pack up and we made our way to Winery. It was a great location, very generous tastings, the meal and wine was excellent, a jazz and blues band entertained us and we had a great overnight stop beside a beautiful lake.
This morning we are intending to drive a little inland to visit the villages of Tilba North and Tilba Tilba then looping back on the Princess Highway driving 10 minutes north to the township of Narooma. ‘Apparently’ Narooma is the mecca for whale watching and recreational fishing but we will let you know. At the moment we plan only to stay one night but if the fishing is good we may stay more than that.
Dearne and Rod's Travel Blog 
Hi Dearne & Rod, I see you had some visitors, a kiwi reunion by the looks, the beach looks like some good surf….bit like out West Coast? flag the boogie boarding though, I see another Aussie lad was boogie boarding and a Bull Shark took both his legs off on Sunday. All good at WHANGA, the place is starting to get ready for what we hope is a long hot summer. Just a couple of weeks until a month down there for Jude all the family and myself to bunk down for a month or so….Yours aye Stapes & Jude.