When my father let me know he was visiting for 6 weeks from South Africa and that he wanted to do some travelling, I immediately thought of going to the Southern Highlands in NSW over the Easter long weekend. A quilting friend of mine has recently started letting her house in Burrawang and I thought it a great idea to stay there.
The house is on an acre of land and is immaculately maintained. The accommodation consists of 3 bedrooms, one with an on-suite bathroom. The kitchen / dining area has 180° views of the valley, river and various dams and this is where we spent the majority of our time at Longacre.
I must confess that I have stayed there before on quilting retreats, so knew that there was a lovely long table that I could set my sewing machine up on, room to leave an ironing board permanently setup and still have room to spare!
We drove down on the Thursday and popped into the Elephant Boy Cafe in Bowral for coffee and cake (Dad had the hot chocolate). The café is setup like an old fashioned library, very relaxing and the food is amazing.
The weather over the weekend was truly awful, with heavy rains most of the time. On Easter Friday, we braved Berrima and were pleasantly surprised to see how many shops were open. We picked up some local produce and had a lovely coffee at another café. Then back home to our lovely central heating to dry and warm up.
The highlight of the weekend was supposed to be the Burrawang Easter Markets on the Saturday. The markets are held in the streets of the village directly outside Longacre. In fact, we were warned that we would need to park our cars at the village green if we were intending to drive anywhere. I woke up all excited to see the 150+ stalls and the 10,000+ visitors the locals in the pub told us normally come every year. I was disappointed to see that it was still raining very heavily and wondered whether the market had been washed out. Leaving my father still sleeping, I went out to see what was happening. The first person I met at a stall at the end of our drive was someone I knew from the Mosman Markets. It looked like about 100+ stallholders had still turned up and the country folk where out in full force shopping. I went back to the house and dragged my father out and we spent a couple of hours getting thoroughly wet and doing some shopping.
On Sunday, we went back to Bowral to see the International Cricket Hall of Fame (Don Bradman Museum). It was really good. Then the weather closed in again and we drove to Mittagong and went antique shopping. Dad found a book on the 70 greatest battles of the world and that was it – I couldn’t talk to him for the rest of the weekend. Meant I could get on with some sewing!
Easter Monday, we drove down to Kiama. During the morning, the rain held off. Google maps directed me to the Little Blowhole – which was great. We then went into Kiama itself, parked up and strolled around yet another market, before walking over the hill to see the Big Blowhole and Lighthouse. On the way back we stopped at the Hunky Dory for fish and chips and as we were eating these, the rain returned. My Dad loved the grilled Barramundi and I enjoyed the battered perch and chips with a glass of wine.
Burrawang has a local pub and not much else. Robertson, Bowral, Berrima, Mittagong and Moss Vale are all within 30 minutes’ drive and best of all there are quilting shops in Berrima and Bowral. There are some amazing restaurants in all these villages, so no need to really cook!