Why take the highway? Muddy back roads, yowie scares and a refined German car that behaves like an Aussie make for a much more memorable Melbourne-Sydney road trip

By David Naylor

“I just saw a yowie,” says Siobhan. She is joking. Ha-ha. But we are deep in the Gippsland backwoods, driving along a narrow dirt track, and the sight of a hairy giant would not surprise me.

The light is fading and my daughter is navigating us towards Waterholes Guest House. For 17km, our beautiful turbo-diesel VW Passat four-door coupé – built for smooth cruising on the German Autobahn – pretends it is a 4WD, gliding over gravel, cornering with precision, climbing with grunt. But the built-in GPS that guided us through the Melbourne maze does not recognise these tracks.

This is day one of our road trip from Melbourne to Sydney, following what we call the B Route. We are taking the back roads, zig-zagging between mountains and sea, and staying in B&Bs in towns that start with B. I was not expecting the “back roads” to be this far back. Already we are bending the rules. The B&B we are trying to find seems a long way from starting-with-B Bairnsdale.

Finally Waterholes appears in the high beam and to our relief, it looks wonderful – modern, spacious, leafy and quiet. Kay Munro, who owns it with husband Bob, shows us to our spacious self-contained suites full of books, board games, binoculars and sketching materials.

“We want people to appreciate the location, without everyday distractions,” says Kay. Panic hits us instantly. We look around. No television. No phones. No internet. No State of Origin.

“Let’s get outta here, Dad,” whispers Siobhan. But I have no intention of disappointing our lovely host.

Kay’s wonderful cooking and a bottle of chardonnay from the local Nicholson River Winery make us forget the footy.

In the night, I wake to the heavy breathing and growling of monsters under my windows. And I lie there thinking how good our first day has been, from the miracle of packing the contents of Siobhan’s South Yarra apartment into the Passat’s spacious boot and back seat, to explorations of strangely named places like Nar Nar Goon and Koo-wee-rup, and the discovery of a town on the Avon River called Stratford, where Shakespeare wasn’t born.

After a big country breakfast and a walking tour of the Munro’s piece of paradise, Kay tells us the “monsters” were probably wombats confronting each other or kangaroos mating.

“Or yowies,” says Siobhan, “trying to get in.” More on Waterholes.

Our B Route is not officially recognised by Sydney-Melbourne Touring, an organisation that promotes three scenic drives between the two state capitals: The Coastal Drive, Heritage Drive and Great Alpine Road. You can check them out here.

Our route takes in a bit of the Great Alpine Road, a bit of the Coastal Drive, and a whole lot of other non-highway ‘C’ roads. It also includes a diversion to Omeo, notorious for its gold rush lawlessness. But first, we have to stay somewhere starting with B, and it turns out to be Omeo’s neighbour, Benambra. The pub is the only place open, so we check in for the night, eat a hearty meal (local beef), play pool and talk to the high country horsemen at the bar.

Jock Sievers and his daughter Tahnee Orchard invite us to see the brumbies they have captured from the wild for a sanctuary they are creating on their property. Their plan is to stop them being slaughtered in regular official culls.

So at 6am, the Passat is again kicking up the dust as we follow 4WD utes along rough tracks. Sunrise casts shades of gold and purple over rolling hills.

We pull up beside a barbed wire fence and watch the brumbies lope up the slope towards us. With their short legs and bulky bodies, these much-maligned wild bush horses are far from perfect equine specimens. But in the gentle light, there is a wild beauty in their haughtiness.

We leave town on a road that passes the dry flat expanse of parched earth that used to be Lake Omeo. The last boat race here was in 1973. Rain has been scarce for many years and the hills are a dusty brown. From McMillans Lookout, we can see Mount Kosciuszko in the distance.

Omeo is a neat, pretty town that belies its wild history. The government of the day cracked down on the diggers’ lawless ways by creating a justice precinct that is still standing in the town’s Historic Park. The preserved buildings include court houses, stables, police residence, log jail and wash house. Historic Park caretaker Jeff Cooper takes us on a tour, describing the gold rush era’s notorious characters, including Thomas Toke, a vile and violent man who eventually settled down with his own butcher shop.

“Gold prospectors bought his pickled pork, but often wondered where he got his pigs from,” says Jeff. At the same time, lone Chinese prospectors had been disappearing en route to Omeo from Tumbarumba in NSW. One night, an American prospector, desperate for meat, broke into Toke’s shop and discovered a severed human hand in the meat safe. Toke burned his shop down when he realised he had been found out and disappeared from the region.

It’s a long, pretty drive back towards the coast. We turn off at Orbost for the winding mountain road to Bombala – the one Benambra’s locals recommended as a “good road”. “It’s now sealed all the way,” they assured us. I assume what they meant was: Sealed all the way… except for the long sections that aren’t sealed!

The Passat glides whisper quiet over the disintegrating bitumen of the C612. Lyre birds hop out of our way as we zip smoothly around the hairiest hairpin bends I’ve ever encountered – for hour after hour. Suddenly, the bitumen stops and we are on gravel, with rain quickly turning it to mud. As we approach the NSW border, the road makes a political statement by turning back into bitumen. The tar continues right up to the border, where the road instantly turns back into mud. Typical.

In a ravine, the Passat starts to labour as it ploughs through the deep mud. With the engine close to stalling and gears manually engaged in first, the tyres finally find traction and haul us out of the mess. Our elegant German is turning into an Aussie.

The good news about this bad road is that it provides access to many mountain bike and bushwalking tracks in a region teeming with history and wildlife.

The Heritage Guest House in Bombala is just what we need after our gruelling drive. The big rooms, with ensuites, are beautifully decorated with “things from the past”. Originally a bank, this historic building is in the heart of town and includes a landscaped garden and café-restaurant. NAB operates its local branch from the front of the ground floor, but the rest of the property is all Heritage. Owner Les Atkins makes us feel at home with his relaxed and friendly manner.

Next morning, the old logging town basks in winter sunshine, its main street looking like country towns used to look 50 years ago. We wander down to the preserved railway station where the trains no longer run, buy products made from local lavender, and wander along the beautiful Bombala River. The locals say we will definitely see platypus here, but we are too late for the early morning show. The lesson is obvious – visit the Platypus Reserve just out of town.

After blasting the mud and dust off the Passat at the local carwash, we head down the mountain to Bermagui. Our B&B accommodation is at Art on Hart, an entire house to ourselves, where the local artwork on the walls is for sale. Owner Gretel Bodiam-Oldfield also has Bellbird Cottage, another B&B nearby, set in lush bushland where the bellbirds tinkle all day.

Next day, we stroll through the town centre with its view over Horseshoe Bay, visit the amazing Blue Pool (where the water is blue in any weather), and explore the nature walk along Moorheads Beach.

We drive up the coast to the historic cheese-making town of Tilba, now restored as a quaint tourist village full of boutiques, bakeries, cafes, arts and crafts. Whenever possible, we leave the Princes Highway to take scenic coastal roads. At Potato Point, Siobhan points to a potato she has stuck on the town sign.

Our final overnight stop is Torpys in Braidwood, a heritage town where the buildings are preserved in their original gold rush architecture, dating from 1839.

Torpys’ owners Andy and Jacki Griffiths have created, with dedication and passion, a genuine “eco” guest house, with motel-style accommodation as well as B&B rooms authentically decorated period-style. Andy’s goal is to make Torpys self-sufficient, recycling anything that can be recycled, and saving energy through an increasing use of solar power. Two goats keep the grass in the big back garden at lawn length. The lawn leads down to Gillamatong Creek where guests can watch the platypus play.

The Passat seems to slide into Sydney – no hint of the trials it went through on Gippsland’s unsealed goat tracks. In five days on the road, I have filled up only twice, then once more at journey’s end. 

In this era of cheap flights, you need a reason to drive between Sydney and Melbourne. If you have the reason and the time, a long slow road trip will give life to a lump of Australia literally on your doorstep.

Open Road November/December 2009