Bermagui’s Blue Pool is carved into a cliff and filled by the Pacific Ocean. Photo / Linda Moon
While most travellers flock north for Australia’s tropical coastline, the lesser-known Sapphire Coast, stretching 90km from Bermagui to Eden, offers an equally beautiful, quieter experience, writes Linda Moon.
Floating over the top of the seagrass, metres from where my husband and I sit relaxing on a hire boat, my teen daughter lifts her snorkel mask to scream something. “Mum! I just saw two seahorses!” Four and a half hours from Sydney, we’re at Narooma (traditional lands of the Yuin people), boating on the Tahitian blue Wagonga Inlet, just one of over 220 beaches and bays scattered like gems across the 400km-long NSW South Coast, and known for their pristine natural beauty. In a world where so much is known, the South Coast (which begins an hour south of Sydney and extends to the border of Victoria) is still charmingly full of secrets. Yet, it yields these freely to those who seek.
Few travel far south of Sydney. Even fewer reach the less populated Far South Coast (also called the Sapphire Coast). For those who do, rewards await in this landscape of beaches and rivers, oyster farms and wilderness.
Technically, the Sapphire Coast begins at Bermagui, 400km south of Sydney, but the sapphire-coloured waters begin 30 minutes earlier, in Narooma.
While you can technically fly to Merimbula, between Eden and Bermagui, this southernmost coast of NSW is best seen as part of a slow road trip from big cities like Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra.
The smorgasbord of beaches and nature along our way means there’s plenty of chance to unplug and unwind. Along the coast-hugging road, we’ve driven through a series of national parks, marine and nature reserves (there are more than 30 such protected reserves on the South Coast), quaint seaside villages and towns, encountered friendly bush kangaroos and marine life at Jervis Bay (the Commonwealth-owned marine park has the best snorkelling in the state), picnicked on the placid shores of Lake Conjola, and more. The centrepiece is a never-ending string of blue beaches, bays, inlets and lakes, mostly to ourselves.
At Narooma’s popular, shark-netted, South Bar Beach, I’m alarmed by a screaming public. There’s a seal swimming along the beach! Chasing a getaway fish, the seal weaves through thrilled and startled bathers just metres from the shore. Narooma is known and loved for its resident seal colony. Several tour operators also run tours to Barunguba Montague Island (a 30-minute boat ride off the coast of Narooma) where you can swim with the seals, see Little Penguins, and more. Such opportunities to encounter wild animals in their own habitat are one of the greatest features of the area.
Yet another way to explore the coastline is taking the coastal Narooma to Dalmeny Cycleway, which is ranked top three of Australian Geographic’s great bike rides of NSW but remains barely known.
We opt to cruise the easy-grade 21km trail on E-bikes hired from Southbound Escapes (a coffee spot, eatery, gift shop, tourist hub, and local visitors centre), crossing the Narooma Mill Bay Boardwalk, where we glimpse stingrays, seals, and the dazzlingly blue Wagonga Inlet, and passing eye-catching beaches, lookouts, forests, reedy mangrove swamps and lakes.
At Bermagui, we clamber down a rock staircase carved out of the cliff, to the Blue Pool. It’s hard to keep one’s eyes off the sight below: rugged, amber-orange cliffs where the Pacific Ocean swirls and foams. Cut into the cliff like an opal, looking out to the blinding blue of the Pacific, the Blue Pool is an Instagrammer’s dream and one of the most famous rock pools in the world. Courtesy of the Pacific, the pool has plenty of southern bite. While my husband relaxes like Neptune against a rock, I take photos, and my daughter braves the freezing pool to snorkel, discovering small fish schools, clusters of nudibranch, and a starfish.
While in Bermagui, we toss on snorkels and explore the beautiful Bruce Steer Pool, a 150m-long saltwater pool fed by the serene harbour at Bermagui Point. After watching octopus, striped fish, and more dart through the water, we pick up some tasty pastries from Honourbread and park up on the beach alongside watchful pelicans and cormorants.
Other enchanting ocean rock pools are found at Eden, Mystery Bay and elsewhere in and around the Sapphire Coast.
Hardy bushes screen us from the wind, and shelter coastal fungi and tiny chirping birds, as we traverse the cliff top trail to see Bermagui’s iconic Horse Head Rock. The bushes also offer protection against the sheer drop to the sea floor below. The gigantic rock, estimated to be over 500 million years old (one of the state’s oldest rock edifices), looks magically like a giant horse taking a drink from the sea.
Descending the trail, back at Camel Rock Surf Beach, we take a closer look at Camel Rock. A photographer’s dream, the rocks are just two of the South Coast’s unique, ancient coastal formations. Other key geological formations in and around the Sapphire Coast include the Pinnacles and Glasshouse Rocks.
At Merimbula, an hour from Bermagui, and the centre of the Sapphire Coast, there’s lots more to do, including walking the 500m-long trail out to Long Point, kayaking and canoeing tours on the Pambula River and the Merimbula to Pambula Cycleway. Short on time, we take the timber boardwalk along the Tahitian-blue inlet, snorkel at the historic Merimbula wharf alongside stingrays, and enjoy coffee at one of the many cafes staring down at the water.
Chillier than northern Australia, the southern morning is brisk, but there’s sun, views and good nosh at Tathra Wharf; a key attraction in the far south village of Tathra. The last remaining wharf and building combination on the NSW coast from the coastal shipping trade of the 1800s, the heritage-listed building brims with crafts and treats. It’s now a cafe, shop, gallery, museum, and popular coffee spot for locals. Seated on a wooden bench by a sunny window, we enjoy a leisurely breakfast, drinking in the sea view. The wharf is just one of scores of south coast eateries where you can sit by the water. Cliffside jaunt, the Tathra Headland Walk, starts outside the wharf, another opportunity to enjoy the startlingly azure water.
Once a whaling and fishing town, and now home to a killer whale museum, Eden is the last key town of the Sapphire Coast. Two lighthouses also attest to its history and feature in the Light To Light coastal walk. Using directions from the award-winning Eden Visitors Centre, we take the lonely walk to the remnants of Ben Boyd Tower on a stony outcrop, gazing upon the desolate vastness of Twofold Bay. At the lookout, there’s that eerie feeling of standing at the edge of the world with whatever ghosts of the past linger. In six days, we’ve barely scratched the surface of the treasures, the mystery and history that exist in this beautiful region.
Sapphire Coast, South Coast, Australia.
Fly from Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra airports direct to Merimbula with Rex Airlines or Qantas.
Drive. The beginning of the Sapphire Coast is about a 5-hour drive from Sydney or 3.5 hours from Canberra.
Countrylink train from Sydney via Canberra.
Tathra Hotel: tathrahotel.com.au
Gillards Campground is 9km north of Tathra, within Mimosa Rocks National Park, and offers beachside tent and campervan camping for about A$25: nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/camping-and-accommodation/campgrounds/gillards-campground
sapphirecoast.com.au
travelnsw.com.au/regions/southcoast
A survey found 32% of tourists regret actions such as posing with statues.