Pacific Highway

The route up the New South Wales coast that took us back to the outskirts of Sydney has some spectacular scenic stretches, but for the most part—whether on the Pacific Highway or on Princes Highway—it leads you through the main streets of a succession of similar seaside towns with long surf beaches, headlands with lighthouses, and a lot of traffic.

We were tempted off the route by Kiama, which claimed both a “Little Blowhole,” and a “Big Blowhole.” We found our way easily to the Little Blowhole, which was in an area of attractive modern houses overlooking the sea.

We also tried to find the “Big Blowhole” and the Historic Lighthouse (many of the towns claimed a historic lighthouse) but found both totally surrounded by parked cars with nowhere to edge our monster Ford Falcon into a space. Oh well—what’s one blowhole more or less.

   

We were tempted to swim in one of the rock pools that are constructed at many beaches, giving swimmers somewhere to swim, as opposed to jumping up and down in the sea as the surf rolls in. These are commonly constructed so that they fill with seawater at high tide, and often have waves crashing over the outer walls, giving the swimmers some impression that they are actually swimming in the sea.

The ugliest part of the drive was through Woolongong, which turned out to be a major industrial and coal shipping centre, with a huge steel works and a zinc smelting plant. The coal ships were waiting in line offshore from the coal wharf, ready to ship Australia’s coal off to China—in exchange for the huge inflow of consumer goods made in China.

  The old road over the high rocky promontory that leads into the southern end of Royal National Park--Lawrence Hargrave Drive--was one of the most scenic roads in Australia, but was notorious for rock falls. In August 2003, a large embankment slip called for a complete road closure. The road remained closed for two and a half years to avoid further rock falls and to allow for the construction of the Sea Cliff Bridge, which was opened in December 2005. To quote the guidebook--

“The 665 metre Sea Cliff Bridge is a highlight along Grand Pacific Drive. The bridge has become an icon to the people of Wollongong and around the world, welcoming tourists’ to this picturesque coastal road.” Of course, the people of Woolongong also have to look at the chimneys of the steel works. 

Out of context--but a good picture, isn't it?

After the sea bridge, we wound up a hill to reach Bald Hill Overlook, high above the ocean, and pulled in to park and look at the view. Moments later, with a huge roar and hiss of escaping steam, a pipe in the heating and cooling system in the car burst open, spewing green coolant onto the ground and scaring the whatever out of us.

   We called the roadside service that the rental car agency subscribed to, and within an hour and a half the NMRA (we suppose the equivalent of AAA or RAC) had arrived and very efficiently replaced the failed hose, filled the cooling system, checked the pressure in the system, topped up our engine oil, run the engine, run the air-conditioning—and pronounced us good to go. Thank you, Tony.

 Before we made our distress call, a young couple came and asked what our problem was, and the young man spotted the hose failure. They said they were going into town and would be back in an hour or so, and that they would check with us to see if the problem had been solved. And they did—rolling in again just as Tony was calling the rental car agency to tell them what the failure had been. This was a good example of the helpfulness we often encountered along the way.

We drove on through Royal National Park, established in 1879—the second national park in the world after Yellowstone—and eventually came back to the highway and thick, thick traffic, through which we drove, somewhat on edge, into the town of Cronulla. We had somehow, erroneously, expected it to be a rather small seaside place. Wrong—it is on the border of the greater Sydney conurbation and has a superb surfing beach that stretches from the town centre for as far as the eye can see—and as far as the eye could see there were surfers. There was not a spare parking place anywhere, and we began to despair of finding somewhere to stay. 

 But luckily we got the last room in a motel close to the town centre; we had a swim in their  pool; enjoyed a beer; the crowds eased on the beaches: and we had an excellent meal at Salt, a restaurant with a large picture window through which we could watch the surfers and the surf rescue team as we ate. Some were still at it as darkness fell.