Most of us would give anything to see more of the ‘Real Australia’, away from our metropolitan cities, traffic jams and shops where we buy the same boring products found the world over on ebay. But the truth is we’re all time poor, annual leave is well allocated and the ‘Real Australia’ is just so far away.
But it doesn’t have to be so. ‘Real Australia’ can be found six hours drive south of Sydney in the Snowy Mountains. The stops you make along the trip are where the real charms lie. Cast your eye down some of these fantastic Australian things to do and there’s a good chance your relatives and friends have never heard of them. Allocate yourself just a few days, or more if you desire and come back to the rat race refreshed and a tad wiser.
Wineries
If you’re a wine buff, you are in luck between Sydney and the Snowy mountains as a plethora of wineries call this stretch of Australia home and are of a very high standard. Jane Kinkade and her husband have travelled extensively in ‘wine country’ of NZ, the USA and Australia and particularly enjoyed three wineries on their way south of Sydney this year.
“We were really impressed by the quality of wines at the 3 wineries we stopped in at. All are cooler climate wines and very family friendly”.
Clonakilla Winery
The charm of friendly country people can really be discovered at family owned wineries. There is not the rushed madness of the city, the need to be ‘somewhere else right away’ just is not there.
Eden Road Wines – “This was a fun visit to do with the kids” Jane says. “It has lovely grounds and children’s toys and games like jenga to amuse them in view of the wine tasting”. There are some NSW winery Gold Medal winners among the wines that are worth discovering.
Clonakilla – On their website James halliday is quoted as describing their Shiraz as ‘an icon wine, one of the best in Australia”, high praise indeed. their 2015 Reisling was awarded a gold medal in the 2015 Canberra Regional show amongst some stiff competition.
Gallagher Wines – Jane adds “The husband and wife team works well. Greg loves a yarn and his wife, Libby is the cheesemaker. The Labneh (cheese) was amazing and transported well back to Sydney”.
Bywong Town
It doesn’t have to involve a long drive around the former gold fields towns to get a good sense of Australia’s gold rush of the 19th century. There’s a gold mining village enroute to Thredbo and you can book a tour on weekdays between 9am to 3pm. It’s just north of Canberra, close to Lake George.
Canberra
Aboriginal Art and Walks
Our capital city is full of surprises, not merely because it is a reasonably sophisticated urban mini metropolis in the middle of the bush, but because it is a great base for exploring some very accessible ‘Real Australia’ experiences. Drive 50 minutes from the city centre to Namadgi National Park and find great bushwalks as well as precious Aboriginal rock art.
Look outs
If you’re partial to getting up high to get the best overview of an area try the Mt Ainslie lookout. Long time residents of Canberra rate it as the ‘best lookout over central Canberra’ and suggest a walk up to the lookout starting immediately behind the War Memorial is not too steep, and is asphalt rather than gravel, taking 30 minutes to walk.
Mt Ainslie Lookout
However, the locals do recommend Mt Taylor as the best lookout in the Canberra region (accessible from Gougher St, Torrens). Rated as a ‘bit steep’ the walk up takes about 40 minutes on a well-formed walking path.
National Gallery
If your last visit to Australia’s National Gallery was a few years ago, it’s well worth poking your head in as the gallery has totally reorganised their art, aboriginal and Torres Strait islander art in a separate section.
The current Australian exhibition is Tom Roberts, a prominent Australian artist oil painter, many of his best works would be familiar to many Australians or of interest to overseas visitors, really epitomising 19th centrury rural Australia, including the blood, sweat and tears of sheep shearing and tough conditions in harsh early Australian country towns. You can almost smell the perspiration and feel the heat emanating from the canvas making you grateful for your ice cold Pimms and your air conditioning. The exhibition is on until March 28th Adult tickets are available for $20 through ticketek.
From many less accessible regions of desert Australia, Aboriginal Art is very extensively displayed here in the gallery and stands at 7,500 pieces of art, the largest collection of aboriginal art in the country and in the world. It is fantastically organised so visitors can really make sense of the different styles of art. These were created by completely different aboriginal groups over their very long history, so you can really appreciate the beauty and talent of this culture.
Mt Gladstone
Another good spot to enjoy a local lookout is Mt Gladstone 3.5km out of town from Cooma. It affords good views of the plains and is a good spot to pull out some sandwiches and drinks and stretch the legs.
Bredbo
Cool off on a hot travel day in some of Bredbo‘s local swimming spots, a very Australian way to get cool with no crocodiles to bite your toes like they will in the Top End of the country. The swimming spots are in walking distance of the town hall, park your car nearby, take towels and some sunscreen and follow the signs.
Dalgety
Heading to the Snowy Mountains and feeling like a little detour? You may like to check out the town of Dalgety. Jane Kinkade and her family did just this on their way to the snowfields during the year. Jane says “Dalgety is a lovely, quintessential small country town. Really quite pretty”. Her children being raised in Sydney’s urban environment got a real kick out of the country experience.
“It’s proper farming territory, they were very curious about the cattle grids over the roads, it was their first time to see that. There were lots of animals for the kids to see and they really enjoyed the whole country experience”.
Dalgety – quintessential farming country
Jane recommends the local pub for reasonably priced pub food. Additionally, Iona Gardens in town serves up homemade lemon yoghurt cake, fudge and local relishes. Dalgety is just 45 minutes to Thredbo, so worth a stop for lunch, dinner or even overnight as an alternative style of accommodation if you’re extending your trip to enjoy every aspect of ‘Real Australia’ and can’t get enough of it all.
Rodeo
If you’re keen and curious to spectate at your very first horse rodeo, be at Tumbarumba on January 1st. You can buy drinks and food there, watch all the entertainment and generally be absolutely amazed how well these riders young and old stay on their horses and do the things they do, all on top of an alive, breathing, seething, wriggling beast who would much rather be chewing grass under a tree.
If you’re in the Snowy mountains over Christmas, Jindabyne also has a fun, well-attended rodeo, traditionally held on Boxing Day (but held on Sunday 27th December).
Thredbo
Thredbo is an entirely different place to the Thredbo you may have been to a decade or more ago, or even how it is in mid-winter when the snow is long on the ground and the sound of snowboards ring in your ears. It is the ‘real deal’ in summer with the best picks being the family friendly bushwalks and the family friendly mountain bike trails. Walks and rides can be guided, for the adventurers less confident of their map reading abilities or just prefer that helping hand that comes when you reign in a local expert who does the job on a weekly basis.
The Mt Kosi walk is a true wilderness experience, ranked as one of the world’s 7 summits. Kids with reasonable fitness, courage and a sense of adventure can handle the 14km return trip. To think you can have this experience and it’s just 6 hours to leg it back to Sydney, is just mind-boggling.
Thredbo Accommodation
It can be daunting to hit a new town and not have the faintest clue where to stay. If you call the Lantern Thredbo Apartments 1800 156 758 the local staff can source you the most appropriate self-contained apartment for your situation and take into account if you have kids with you, need accessible accommodation or the most romantic apartment on their books.
All come with clothes washing and cooking facilities and many with eye-popping views of the great Australian bush, complete with birds, wildflowers and the smell of summer. Right across summer is a 3 nights for the price of 2 special, take advantage of it and with the money saved you can buy yourself a bottle of champagne to be enjoyed out of the apartment balcony. High fives for a great Australian trip without leaving the state of NSW come for free.