Another Easter Getaway!

So, for the 3rd year running we’ve done an Easter road trip… This time we hit the South Coast of NSW!

As always, we started our trip early in the morning on Good Friday to avoid traffic. We were out and on the road by 6am which meant that the roads were mostly empty and we made good time to Kiama where we stopped for a quick breakfast while staring at the Blowhole. Unfortunately, the sea was too calm for the blowhole this morning… still a nice spot to have breakfast though!.

Our goal for the day was to reach Ulladulla at some point, but since we didn’t have to be there at any specific time, we took our time and made a side trip to Jervis Bay and its beautiful beaches. The beaches and waters at Jervis Bay are just stunning. We figured it might be too cold to swim in at this time of year but after feeling the water, it turns out that it was quite nice and definitely swimmable! But, since we weren’t staying in the area we didn’t bother this time…. we’ll be back soon again!

Eventually we made it to Ulladulla where, after checking into our accommodation, we wandered around the harbour and town for a while before settling in for dinner.

As always on Good Friday, I was on the lookout for a big steak for dinner, unfortunately Ulladulla is quite small and doesn’t have many places open, so I had to settle for a meat pizza (which in all honesty was quite good!).

We continued our drive the next morning with a brunch stop in Batemans Bay, stopping at the small town of Mogo to browse the small shops and have some great home made ice-cream (One of the best coconut ice-creams I’ve had) before eventually ending up at our final stop of the day, Moruya.

After checking in, we went to carry the suitcase into the room when we noticed that the door was open. We just assumed that the room has just been cleaned out, put our stuff in there, locked the door and left to explore.

The town of Moruya doesn’t really have much to offer, we just chose it as it was at a good distance for a stop-over. What was nice to see though was Moruya Heads with its cliffs and beautiful (and empty) beach!

As it was still too early for dinner we stopped at the local hotel and had a drink while enjoying the last of the afternoon. Then we headed back to the room where we just sat and watched a bit of TV before it was time for dinner. It was here that we started to notice that the room really reeked of cigarette smoke.

I started to try and figure out where the smoke was coming from, the carpet smelled new and the bed and furniture were fine. On the walls I detected a faint smell but didn’t think it could be what was causing the stench… and then I smelled the curtains, Pheeewww!! They smelled as if someone had been smoking in that room for at least 20 years straight!

We went to inquire about a new room (easter usually means everything is fully booked), and they had one room available which we managed to get. They did apologise for the room, mentioned it’s a non-smoking room and that the cleaning lady hadn’t noticed anything… But, since the door was open when we arrived (to air out the place of course) we suspected they knew all about it (weird as the only thing they needed to do was to replace, or wash the curtains).

Anyway, after moving into our new room we went off and had some local town Chinese food (what can you do, there wasn’t really a lot of options available) before we called it an early night!

Well, the next morning our drive was in the northern direction, past Mogo where we stopped for breakfast, past Batemans Bay where we turned off the main highway and drove through Braidwood before reaching Canberra.

Autumn is a lovely time to visit our nations capital! The temperature is good, the trees display all sorts of colour variations and on this trip, we kept getting beautiful blue skies (at the same time, Sydney had rain, rain and some more rain during this easter weekend so we chose the right time to get away).

We decided to include Canberra on our trip so that we could get a chance to catch up with some of our friends who we don’t get to see that often (shamefull really, it’s not that far away when you think about it).

As we had some time before we were meeting up with the gang for lunch, we decided to do a stop over at Lake Burley Griffin just to wander the grounds and stretch our legs (nice after a long drive. And since it was a great day for it, quite a lot of people were in the park lazing around as well!

Anyway, to keep it all nice and short, we went to Tilly’s for lunch where we met up with Murray, Danni, Thomas and Lauren. The rest of the afternoon we spent at Murray and Danni’s place where we ate a great roast and way too much chocolate (not that there is such a thing) while catching up and getting to hear about their upcoming Eastern Europe trip (not jealous at all, not at all). The next day after saying our goodbyes we also managed to catch up with Kath and Drew for lunch in the city before heading back to rainy Sydney!

So, we’ve managed to travel away somewhere for easter for the last 3 years and they’ve all been great! Will we get to travel anywhere next year as well? Who know… there are a few things happening before now and then, so we’ll just have to see 😉