Just don't forget your favourite road trip playlist.
When it comes to a weekend escape, few places match the beauty and convenience of the Southern Highlands. It’s proximity to Sydney (around one and half hour’s drive) is one of the many reasons it’s been a firm favourite for urban dwellers looking to escape the city for over a century.
With the promise of spring’s warmer weather on the way, we packed our bags and hit the highway in a Maserati Ghibli S for a day to explore the majestic beauty of this food-driven region.
Bowral
Located ten minutes south of Mittagong (often considered the gateway to the Southern Highlands), Borwal is a burgeoning hub of homeware stores (both antiques and new) and restaurants with a growing cafe scene.
Leading the charge is The Press Shop, which serves 7 Miles Coffee Roasters beans from a buzzing cafe and stationery store. With breakfast and lunch daily by head chef Nathan West, the menu spans the flavours of the region thanks in part its focus on promoting only local producers, including Taluca Park and Moonacres Farm—both gold medalists in the 2019 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards.
Pick up your first flat white for the day over local free-range eggs on toast with green tomato chutney and Mauger bacon before doing a lap of the stationery on offer from Bespoke Letterpress. As the flagship store to the global brand, you’ll also see first hand the vintage presses located in the back where staff continue the tradition of printing by manual methods.
No stop to Bowral is complete without a walkthrough of local antique haven Dirty Janes Emporium and market, with its vintage homewares, furniture and second-hand goods inside the largest indoor market in the Southern Highlands. Likewise, a visit to the award-winning Gumnut Patisserie to pick up essential roadside snacks before hitting the road again is simply a non-negotiable.
Berrima
A 15-minute drive weaving west from Bowral will lead you through to the historic township of Berrima, home to the oldest continuously licenced pub in Australia. Pick up supplies from local providores including Mrs Oldbucks Pantry which stocks more than 120 types of tea and a variety of jams, jellies and marmalades, before making a pitstop for unique handcrafted pottery items from the Berrima Village Pottery.
Five minutes outside of town is Bendooley Estate with its bibliophile haven Burkelouw Book Barn. Prepare to rummage through rare, antiquarian books, alongside second-hand favourites over a pre-lunch coffee from the cafe and bar.
Taralga in the Southern Tablelands
Make the most of the expansive countryside with a drive to Taralga, an hour’s journey west of Berrima. Pass through rolling hills and sprawling farmland for lunch at The Argyle Inn. It’s here that Hugh Wennerbom (of Holmbrae chickens fame), along with wife Mary Ellen Hudson, runs the lovingly resorted 1870s pub-turned-restaurant-and-bar with boutique lodgings (available on the second floor).
The menu changes regularly, but on this visit, the house-made bread from ex-Iggy’s chef (yes, the one in Sydney’s beachside suburb of Bronte) Hunter Carlberg with cultured butter kicks off the relaxed lunch affair. A country-style lasagne manages to achieve what many others fail to do in balancing both the bechamel and ragu, and arrives adorned with a hefty layer of finely shaved parmesan. A still wobbly creme caramel with blood orange completes the luncheon that, if weather permits, is best finished outside in the warm afternoon sun. Choose a wine from one of the local vineyards or from the further afield Canberra region and you’ve got yourself a winner of a day.
Getting there:
We recommend leaving Sydney early to avoid any traffic you might encounter on the freeway. Strapped into our sporty Maserati Ghibli S with its powerful turbo 3L engine, the drive to Bowral was completed in just under an hour and a half and from there the drive to Berrima was a just a short 7.4km trip via Oxleys Hill Road. The onward journey to Taralga takes just over an hour and the return leg back to Sydney can be completed in two and a half hours, which thanks to the truly luxe Italian interiors and handling (that’s smoother than a shiraz) was one road trip we’re unlikely to forget.
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