Jervis Bay

Last weekend we took a family road trip down the south coast of NSW to a beautiful area known as Jervis Bay.  It's about 200 km (125 miles) from Sydney.  All the brochures state it is an easy 2.5 hour drive.  I guess they mean it is 2.5 hours if you have only adults in the car and you leave at 11:15 am on a Tuesday.  Friday afternoon with three kids makes the trip a lot longer.  About twice as long in fact.  But, after 5 hours in the car, we arrived at this lovely holiday apartment in the town of Vincentia.

There is always a flurry of excitement when we arrive at our destination.  The kids run around, check out their room, open all the cupboards, explore the place and, in general, send me into a panic that something will be broken before we even unload the car. 

Luckily, no knick-knacks were harmed on this holiday!

We were up bright and early Saturday morning and set off to explore the town of Huskisson.  We had an uninspired breakfast at the Husky Bakery- which is only worth mentioning because they had an actual McDonald's playplace in the back of the cafe.


We had just enough time to book a dolphin watch cruise on The Extreme.  We thought the fast 1.5 hour trip would be perfect for the kids.  So we headed to the dock, armed with motion sickness tablets and armbands for the Little Princess.  We were all amazed to see large pods of dolphins jumping and swimming right next to the boat.  Of course, the dolphin watching was overshadowed a bit by the melt down and near panic attack suffered by the Little Princess.  She completely lost the plot (as they say here) and was terrified by the boat ride.  Afterward I asked her if it was all worth it to see the dolphins up close.  Her reply was a resounding, "NO!"  Oh well, I thought it was thrilling.

Jervis Bay is known for it's gorgeous beaches.  Hyams Beach claims to have the whitest sand in the world.  It is nearly pure silica and squeaks when you walk on it. 

The next day we took some time to explore Booderee National Park.  We bushwalked to Green Patch via the Rock Platform and saw lots of Neptune's Necklace in the tide pools.  The views were stunning (Would you expect anything else?  This is Australia!)


We also spent some time at beautiful Murray's Beach.  We saw more dolphins and even a stingray swimming very close to shore.  The water was absolutely crystal clear and still warm even though it is early Autumn.  It was a perfect place to spend the afternoon.  None of us wanted to leave.

But, as the weekend drew to a close we had to load up and head back to Sydney.  I wish we could go back during whale watching season, but I'm afraid that won't happen.  Too many places to see and, sadly, not enough time.