January 6, 2017
Before I get into the next phase for the blog (more New Zealand South Island coming), I’d like to give a quick report of our cruise so far from Sydney to Tasmania. Our route has been rather off the beaten track for two reasons:
a. Most cruisers don’t make it south of the Sydney area.
b. Those who do are generally headed to Tasmania and more focused on getting there than on destinations in between.
We are among the few oddballs who’ve actually cruised southern New South Wales and–nearly unheard of for foreign boats–Victoria. The clerk at Sydney’s marine store could not, for the life of him, understand why’d we’d want to order a Victoria Cruising Guide because no one cruises there. Undeterred, we ordered the book. Since then we’ve done our cruise of south New South Wales and a bit of Victoria and loved it. Most of these places deserve eventual blog posts of their own, many of them more than one, but for now I’ll just try to do a quick summary of our journey south of Sydney. (Note: You can click top enlarge and scroll through any of the photos that follow.)
Stop One: Port Hacking (13 miles south of Sydney): Dream living for many, a nightmare for us. We’d hoped to get a mooring off the park near the harbor’s entrance, but the moorings were full. We ended up going into Gunnamatta Bay to its reputed anchorage. The bad news: it’s all moorings now with no room to anchor. The good news: there was a single visitor mooring, and it was empty. The next bad news: we didn’t like it there, but then that was a matter of personal taste. This is the sort of area where upscale homes sit perched on the hillside over the water, each with their own small boathouse for power boats or jet skies. And they like to use them: watercraft buzzed all around us like bees around a hive. I’m sure everyone was having a great time, but it was just too much for us. We decided to leave the early the next morning, a good thing because we just missed a tremendous wave of heat followed by a huge thunderstorm the following afternoon.
Stop Two: Jervis Bay (80 miles south of Sydney). Who Knew? We’d never heard of this area but had been told it’s nice. Is it ever! It’s a tourist destination for Aussies but not so much for foreigners because it’s off the mainstream route. That’s too bad as this big (8 miles long, 4 1/2 miles wide) harbor boasts two beautiful national parks, two nice towns (one tiny, one bigger and more touristy), and miles of beaches with the “whitest sand in the world.” While we’ve seen sand like this, it was indeed very white and accompanied by the bright turquoise and emerald water that white sand brings, seemingly out of place, but strikingly beautiful, against Australian bush vegetation. We stayed here a week or so, going to 5 different anchorages depending on the winds and what we wanted to see. What a treat this place was! Jervis should be immediately added to “the beaten track” in Australia.
Stop 3: Batemans Bay (47 miles south of Jervis). Well, we’re not fans, but we arrived in windy weather, only stayed one night, and never made it to the town so we can’t really judge fairly. But the area in general did not grab us. Like Port Hacking, we decided to leave the next day, and like Port Hacking, this was a good decision in that they, too, had an intense day of heat and a thunderstorm the following afternoon. (One of the main themes of this Australian cruising season has been keeping ahead of the heat.)
Stop 4: Bermagui Bay. We were worried because to stay here, you have to get a spot on the wharf or (come to find out) in one of the two marinas–there’s no anchorage. What if we couldn’t get a spot? No worries: the marina had slips available. What a beautiful little town this is, with lots of trees, low rolling hills, grassy knolls, lovely hikes, postcard-worthy beaches, great eateries, playful parrots, and their famous blue pool. We stayed a week or so and loved it. We could happily have stayed much longer. Like Jervis Bay, this is another little-known gem to foreign visitors, but well-loved by Aussies.
Stop 5: Eden (at the south end of New South Wales): The unofficial waiting area for crossing over to Tasmania, this is known as a beautiful but difficult place for boaters in that you need to pick up and move around the harbor depending on the wind direction, and it’s rather open to the ocean and can be rolly. It was pretty, but we only stayed a night and didn’t really get a sense of it. We’ll see more of it on the way back north, I’m sure. But we realized that some advice we’d been given was very good: do laundry, provisioning, and resting up in Bermagui, then go to Eden just before making the jump south. Bermagui is so much easier to stay in than Eden.
Stop 6: Gippsland Lakes (on the south coast of Australia): What a wonderful place this has been! Part lush eucalyptus forest, part wetlands, and part hilly savanna. Lots of wildlife and bird life in particular. In the course of the day we’ll see black swans, white cockatoos, corellas (smaller white cockatoos), lorikeets (rainbow-colored parrots), galahs (gray and red parrots), rosellas (purple and red parrots), herons, huge sea eagles, pelicans, kookooburras, and other birds. We’ve also seen a kangaroo, a wallaby, koalas, red foxes, dolphins and fur seals. The waterways go back many miles, and aside from 3 beautiful bays we’ve stayed in there are three great towns. We even managed to managed to get into shallower areas so we could visit Australia’s vast 90-Mile Beach. For me, the Gippsland Lakes area brings to mind the poppy fields Dorothy encountered on her way to Oz. It may not have the dramatic beauty of some other places we’ve seen, but it’s so relaxing, so peaceful, and just so darn nice that it’s tempting to fall over, let all problems, worries and plans of a lifetime slip away, and sleep a happy sleep forever. The Emerald City can wait.
(See Gippsland Lakes photos in previous post.)
In all, Australia has been very good to us this time around. I think we’ll like Tasmania (our next place to visit – we’re on our way there now), but even if for some reason we don’t, we’d still consider this a wonderful and worthwhile cruising season just from what we’ve done so far.
Below is an interactive Google map of these places. –Cyndi
