an Aussie family road trip
Last May, I told my son Sam I would be coming to visit him and his family for a month over Christmas. Sam was over the moon and replied, ‘We’ll go for a Christmas holiday road trip!’ By September, Sam and his wife, Alexa, had everything planned and booked!
I set foot on Australian soil on 15 December. Two days later, we crammed ourselves and all the necessary camping gear in to the seven seater hired for our 24-day trip. I had the honour of a front seat (albeit with a large box of camera equipment at my feet). Winnie (age 3½) was in her child seat behind Sam at the wheel, Alexa and Frida (9½) sat beside Winnie in the middle row, and Delyth (7) was in the back row. Our clothes, in various cases and bags, went beside her, and in the very back were boxes of food and the trusty Esky cooler, containing the most perishable food and needing to be regularly refilled with a new bag of ice (easily obtainable in service stations). Strapped to the roof rack were four surfboards, our tents, bedding, cooking equipment (including the camping table and camping gas cooker) and a large water container. Sam was an absolute master at securing everything on top: it never budged!
Our vehicle, loaded up and ready to roll.
We set out from Maroubra, Sydney, heading to our first destination, a campsite at Diamond Head on the NSW coast, buried deep in the Crowdy Bay National Park. We arrived via a long drive in the dark along dirt tracks. I set to work rustling up a bean stew for everyone while Sam oversaw the pitching of the tents. So began three glorious days in this idyllic spot, with its perfect azure beach and the interesting company of Goannas (a type of lizard, nearly 2 metres long!), Eastern Grey kangaroos and witty myna birds (all with a beady eye on our food!).
Crowdy Bay wildlife: a goanna (left) and an Eastern Grey kangaroo (right).
On 21 December, we moved on to an Airbnb at The Steps, Barrington. We visited nearby Gloucester, where Alexa found an eclectic selection of second-hand CDs for the car, including a collection of Welsh songs from the three leading male voice choirs of 1993, Duke Ellington, and Christmas carols arranged by Mantovani. For my birthday treat (two days before Christmas) we went ‘river sledding’ down the Barrington on inflatable rafts, which involved negotiating a succession of waterfalls. Frida did this so elegantly whereas Sam and I, much to everyone’s amusement, tended to do a nose dive over the larger ones! I made a chocolate-covered Sephardic orange cake (see page 237 of my book) in a loaf tin as a birthday cake. While we were all tucking in, Frida suddenly told us that she had lost the feeling in her scalp. When Sam took a look he found a grotesquely bloated tick with its vast mouth firmly embedded. So he rushed her off to Gloucester hospital, where after much delay it was frozen off. Thankfully, the medics reassured them that there is no Lyme disease in the area.
Out for a birthday walk in Barrington Tops National Park, wearing a big shirt for protection from the sun.
On 24 December we travelled, partly by ferry, to another excellent Airbnb at Crescent Head, for Christmas and Sam’s birthday on Boxing Day. We drove along a breathtaking Eucalyptus avenue, and had great fun singing Christmas carols with the Mantovani orchestra CD. On Christmas day we followed a picturesque path from the top of a nearby cliff down to a deserted beach, and spent the day relaxing on the sand and swimming and surfing in the sea. (Luckily for us, the crowds of Crescent Head Christmas holidaymakers gathered on the beach just round the head.) It was so perfect that Sam chose to return there for his birthday the next day, after a breakfast of buckwheat pancakes with fruit, yoghurt and honey. This quickly became the official road-trip breakfast!
On 27 December we headed to our next destination, Treachery Camp, Seal Rocks. Here we set up the tents amongst the trees, close to a family friend who had encouraged a group of friends, also from Maroubra, to come too. We were immediately invited to join them all for supper, which several of them had made together. On New Year’s Day everyone’s kids (all aged under 10) spent the day in quiet little corners rehearsing in secret, the elder ones helping the younger ones and when darkness fell, illuminated by magical multicoloured fairy lights, put on a fantastic show of mime, dance, singing, gymnastics, acrobatics and clowning – with a vocal intermission from Sam with his guitar. The following day we all met up for a final supper together on Sugarloaf beach, where the kids enjoyed themselves ‘surfing’ down the sand dunes. One of the group, an Italian, brought some excellent Italian organic Prosecco, and Sam made a fine batch of Indian Chickpea Flour Pancakes (see page 49 of my book).
The kids taking a break from rehearsals, at Seal Rocks.
Whilst at Treachery we also visited the Sugarloaf Point lighthouse, built in 1875. ‘Treachery’ refers to the perilous rock formation, Seal Rocks, that the lighthouse was built to protect. It was the first in a ‘highway of lights’ built along the NSW coast in the late nineteenth century, to safeguard shipping. Even with the lighthouses in place, ships were still often wrecked on Seal Rocks, due to the treacherous currents.
Sugarloaf beach, viewed from Sugarloaf Point lighthouse.
Destination number 5 on our road trip was Ganguddy-Dunns Swamp. We set off on 3 January with the kids listening to an audiobook of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. En route we stopped at Denman, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, hoping to pick up more supplies for the next two days. I have never seen such a display of ultra-processed food: fridge after fridge of fizzy drinks. We did manage to buy eggs, tomatoes, milk and butter. As if I was not dismayed enough by the provisions on offer in Denman, worse was to follow. We found ourselves passing enormous – and I mean unbelievably enormous – open-cast coal mines. Australia has an excellent reputation for green energy, but multinationals export vast quantities of Australian coal to China. We saw goods trains over two kilometres long transporting the fuel, in all likelihood to Newcastle NSW, the largest coal exporting port in the world.
By total contrast, Ganguddy-Dunns Swamp is outstandingly beautiful. It is a mixture of vast ‘pagoda’ boulders and elegant scribbly gums, which have smooth, grey-white bark covered with intricate zigzag ‘scribblings’ – the work of the scribbly gum moth larvae which are revealed when the tree sheds its bark. It was originally the territory of the Wiradjuri people – we saw genuine indigenous handprints. It all reminded me strongly of the powerful Australian film Picnic at Hanging Rock.
A cheeky kookaburra (left), eyeing our camp for scraps, and a stick insect on the trunk of a scribbly gum tree (right).
Ganguddy campsite provides firewood and heavy metal barbecues but is fully off-grid and uses non-flushing toilets. Campers need to take away their rubbish, and wash their dishes and themselves in the most inviting of creeks, the Cudgegong river. On our first night we watched the full moon rise behind the silhouettes of the scribbly gums as we ate chickpea pasta with a creamy, oniony bean sauce. The following day, after Lex had rustled up another round of scrumptious buckwheat pancakes for our breakfast, Sam took me on an unforgettable walk which involved climbing up the pagoda rocks for a fabulous view over a vast expanse of countryside, towards extinct volcanos. That evening Sam lit the barbecue using oily eucalyptus, which we found burns more easily and hotter than hard European woods. We wrapped potatoes in foil and buried them in the ashes, then suddenly the sky turned black. Before we knew where we were, we found ourselves in the middle of a ferocious thunderstorm. We all raced to the family tent and sat it out as the lightening cracked and the roar of the thunder claps ricocheted across the mountains, counting to see how many kilometres away the storm was. When it stopped an hour and a half later, we ran to see if the barbecue had been extinguished – but the fire was in excellent form and the potatoes were ready! They were delicious with butter. We also barbecued skewers of halloumi, courgettes, red peppers, mushroom and red onion.
A stunning view over a valley on the way to Katoomba.
On 6 January, we made our way through the Blue Mountains to Katoomba, where we stayed in one of the oldest guesthouses in the area, built in 1918. Since 2001 it has been a youth hostel – the most palatial youth hostel I have ever seen, with high ceilings and lovely art nouveau touches, such as the lights in the ballroom. Our penultimate day was action-packed. After breakfasting on Indian chickpea-flour pancakes, we set off on a precipitous walk down to the Minnehaha Falls. We had to watch our step because the rocks were decidedly uneven and there was a vast drop down to the river below. We were rewarded with a beautiful pool at foot of the waterfall, into which we all jumped and had a bracing swim. Delyth had walked there and back on the promise of chocolate on our return, so we enquired of Tripadvisor where we could we find the best chocolate in Katoomba. The answer was the Blue Mountains Chocolate Company which turned out to be a real find. In the end most of us plumped for their homemade gelato or sorbet. Their vanilla gelato was something very special, with a tremendous flavour. The girls had great fun choosing a selection of chocolates to take to relations in Bathurst the next day.
We had promised ourselves that we would watch the sun set over the mountains by the Three Sisters on the last night of our road trip, and it proved to be a spectacular and dramatic sight, with the blue mountains to the south against the pink sky. A wonderful conclusion to the road trip.
Sunset over the Blue Mountains.
We set off back to Maroubra the following day, 8 January, via relations in Bathurst. First to Sam’s aunt, Robyn, whose local magpies gave us a wonderful serenade in their flute-like tones. And then to his cousin Megan, who lives in the house where the queen visited and had a cup of tea in 1954. We arrived in the early hours of 9 January full of the joys of our many experiences and the peace of the amazing Australian countryside.