Cooma to Kiama

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This morning, we visited the Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre before we left Cooma behind us. We were just in time for the day’s first introductory talk and ‘virtual flyover’ experience in the theatrette. It was interesting to hear some details about the Snowy Scheme’s history before learning about Snowy 2.0 and to appreciate the sheer size of the project on the 14-metre-wide screen and floor projections. The Centre’s displays include a three-metre model of the tunnel boring machine which was fascinating BUT no-one could tell us how many people it takes to operate it?!

Bernie had decided on the scenic route to Kiama on the minor roads via Braidwood. He checked this route on Google Maps AND Apple Maps and neither of these sources indicated that we would encounter any difficulties. Just out of Cooma we turned onto the Numeralla Road, and all was going well until … the bitumen ran out. Oh, Bernie says, I didn’t realise the road was going to be an unmade road. Um, yeah, says me with the Hema Touring Atlas on my lap, there’s quite a long section coming up that is showing as unsealed.

Not to worry, the truck should be able to cope with a bit of unmade road! And it was all OK until we came upon a sign that said, ‘Road Closed Local Traffic Only’. We debated this for a couple of minutes thinking - how bad can it be? We knew there had been storms on Tuesday which may have resulted in some water over the road but, we thought, surely it has subsided by now and they are just being slack about removing the sign?

So onwards it was rather than admit defeat and return to the Monaro Highway. We had also decided that we were prepared to turn around and go back if indeed the road proved to be unpassable. We continued driving alongside the Minuma Range between the Deua and Gourock National Parks. The cloud lowered and it was quite spooky driving through burnt eucalypts (from the horror bushfires of 2019/20 we surmised) shrouded in fog. The road condition was fine at this point, but visibility was poor!

Many kilometres after committing to this route we started to see evidence of the storm damage with signs of fallen trees having been cleared from the road. And yet still, we didn’t turn back! We drove around one switchback corner where a farmer was still clearing trees that looked like they had fallen from his paddock onto the road. At least as the road condition deteriorated the cloud lifted and visibility improved.

We made it to just south of the Captains Flat turn off (probably about two thirds into our journey to Braidwood) and it looked like we were in trouble. The road was washed out completely at Witts Creek near where it enters the Shoalhaven River. Fortunately, the road crew had put in just enough fill for their trucks to be able to negotiate the ‘road’ and one of the (exasperated) road crew waved us through.

Phew, we made it to Braidwood without having to return to the Monaro Highway and drive north twice! After a short lunch break at Braidwood, we continued towards Nowra on the Braidwood Road which heads north to Nerriga before turning eastwards towards the coast through Sassafras and Tianjara. We stopped briefly at Tianjara to look at the Tianjara Falls on the Tianjara Creek!

After the falls the road continued more northerly alongside the Jerrawangala National Park before joining the Princes Highway (A1) at Nowra. As we drove through all of this bush, we had our eyes peeled for kookaburras and other wildlife but we didn’t spot much life at all. We couldn’t believe our eyes as we were making our way along the highway through Nowra when we spotted a kookaburra perched on one of the lights on the median strip. So much for them disliking urban areas!

Crossing the Shoalhaven River which heads towards the sea at Nowra we made our way to Bomaderry. At Bomaderry the A1 becomes the M1 so we were able to enjoy some motorway driving after our adventures of this morning. We arrived in Kiama where we made our way to the Nova Kiama on Bong Bong Street! After checking in we ventured down to the (well-rated) Mexican restaurant to see about booking a table for dinner.

Hmmn, it’s Friday night and it would have been a good idea to book a restaurant with this in mind. Not to worry El Corazon Cocina de Mexico could accommodate us … but not until a little later than we had in mind. After booking to return later we asked for direction to an ice-cream parlour. We were going to need something to tide us over until dinner time, ha, ha!

After our ice-creams we walked along the Kiama Coast Walk to Blowhole Point to check out Kiama’s famous blowhole and the Kiama Lighthouse. Even though it was late in the afternoon there were SO MANY tourists about. The blowhole was spouting reasonably regularly so we watched and waited to take some photos of the spray. I checked the tide times and discovered that it was right on low tide. We wondered whether it is better to visit at high tide for more spectacular blowing?? Perhaps we’ll swing by in the morning for another look as it will be close to high tide around the time we plan to be heading off.

We returned to our room and spent some time processing photos and putting a post on Facebook about our drive north and the unexpected road conditions before heading out again for our late-ish dinner. We enjoyed our dinner but then … Mexican cuisine is one of our faves.

After posting on Facebook earlier this evening about today’s adventure we returned to our room to a post from a friend who lives in Queanbeyan (Canberra) tagging us with an update on the Queanbeyan-Palerang Council’s FB page. Hmmn, this source (unlike Google and Apple Maps) DID provide a real-time and accurate update on the repairs to Cooma Road south of Braidwood.

At 5.15pm the page was reporting ‘another good day of progress but unfortunately, we aren’t quite ready to open a lane of Cooma Road near Witts Creek. The road remains closed.’ Yup, officially the road was closed but we managed to make it through … just! The crew was due to return to the site on Saturday morning and hoped to open one lane for local traffic sometime Saturday morning.

Being tourists we had no idea that this source was the one we should have checked for road conditions. We didn’t know that we were in the Queanbeyan-Palerang Council’s district!! It’s a little frustrating that Google and Apple hadn’t picked up this information for their platforms for the benefit of people using their SatNav??? Lesson learnt for future road trips though? Maybe we should be aware of the local government areas we will be traveling through so that we can check their FB pages if weather events occur? Of course, we would still need phone coverage to do that and that can be patchy even on the east coast let alone in more remote areas we might venture to.



Steps: 11,237 (7.33kms)

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