Our Merimbula Visit

Merimbula is one of those little coastal towns that we will be very sad to leave. It is located on the Sapphire coast of New South Wales and is approximately seven hours from Melbourne or three hours from Canberra. The weather since our arrival on Thursday has been super kind to us, the towns services and hospitality are great and of course the local delicacy, oysters, have been well and truly sampled.

One of the many oyster farms on the Merimbula Lake

The region has been ‘reinvented’ a number of times over the past 170 years.  Immigrants from Scotland first settled in 1830 and established a whaling station and cattle runs. In 1840 when the livestock market crashed, it was found good quality maize could be grown on the cattle farms. This in turn led to the proliferation of flourmills. To compliment the maize industry and in 1922, pig farms and bacon factories were established.

Oyster farming is Merimbula’s crowning industry today.  Oyster farming begun in earnest after World War I and today there is scarcely an estuary or inlet not laddered by oyster farms.

At the Crowded House and Split Enz Tribute Concert

The prime reason for our visit to the town was to have three days of no travel and just kick back and relax. We have certainly been able to do that. The Crowded House and Split Enz Tribute concert on Friday night was a great success – not like the ‘real’ thing of course but it was a very pleasant evening.

There are a number of good walks around the area but for us the best one was the boardwalk around the edge of the Merimbula Lake. The boardwalk is approximately 3.5 km and takes about 1 or 2 hours to complete. There are signs along the way to highlighting the local marine life and vegetation. It is an easy walk and gives stunning views over the lake and surrounds.

More shots of our boardwalk amble HERE .

The happy couple on the Merimbula Boardwalk

Today (Sunday) we leave Merimbula and head further south. We are not quite sure how far south we will go on this leg as we need to be mindful we have to be in Canberra on the 16 December to have the motorhome and jeep serviced on the 17^th.  We will probably go as far south as Cann River then take the Monaro Highway north to Bombala, then northeast to Jindabyne, up to Cooma then back onto the Monaro Highway into Canberra. We shall see – the weather and road conditions have ways of forcing a change of plan.