Kiama Travelogue
Table of Contents
A few weeks back, we had a lazy weekend and Jo asked if we could do a day trip somewhere. Last year, when Jo’s cousins were over, we did a trip to Bowral, and while returning, we drove by Kiama. Unfortunately, we were already late and didn’t have time to explore the town back then. We decided to make a day trip to Kiama to check out the town.
The trip also gave me a chance to try out the Haval Jolion Pro HEV (and I wasn’t too impressed with it – see the section below). Our trip started with us booking the car. I wasn’t sure how long we’d take, so we booked the car on GoGet for 8 hours. The Haval Jolion was parked at Crow’s Nest, near Moon Phase cafe, so we decided to head to the cafe for a quick breakfast, pick up coffee, and start driving towards Kiama.
Moon Phase #
I’ve written about Moon Phase previously – it’s a small little cafe that makes some seriously amazing pastries that are so amazingly crunchy. We picked a pastry each to eat at the cafe and then a couple of coffees for the road.
The Haval was parked just outside the cafe, so we didn’t have to walk far. Seated in the car, I did my usual driver adjustments, Jo started our road trip playlist, and we started off. Since this was a car I had never driven before, it took me a good half hour or so to get familiar with the acceleration, braking, adjusting the cruise control, and other such idiosyncrasies of the car.
Once settled in, the rest of the ride to Kiama was smooth and comfortable. We took the M1 motorway – and that did mean we reached Kiama in about two hours. However, the M1 skips the Grand Pacific Drive and Sea Cliff Bridge – but that’s okay, we’ll do that route some other time.
Kiama #
We arrived at Kiama around 11:40 am and, since the markets were on, decided to head over to the markets. Jo initially input a location that was a bit… derelict. Not sure what happened there, but a quick check and we realized the markets were a couple of streets away, so we headed over there. There wasn’t much parking available, so we found a spot close by and started walking to the market, passing by the Scots Presbyterian Church.
We walked closer towards the Kiama Seaside Markets. The market was buzzing and quite vibrant. There were all sorts of stalls selling souvenirs, artisanal goods, and quite a bit of food. We didn’t buy anything, but it was nice to walk around and see the stalls. From the markets, we walked towards the black beach and sat down there for a while.
From here, we decided to head over to the Kiama Blowhole – arguably, Kiama’s most famous and iconic spot. Kiama Blowhole is apparently the largest in the world and shoots up water through the 2.5-metre opening in the rocks to as high as 30 metres. The blowhole has many different viewing points, but I think the best one was the point that’s just after the first level of steps. The level that the water plume reaches through the blowhole can vary depending on weather, wind, tide, and more. We didn’t have to wait long before seeing the water shoot through, and while it wasn’t as high as what we’d seen in some of the pictures, it was nonetheless quite spectacular. After walking around for a bit here, we went over to the Little Blowhole, which is less famous, but I found it to be a lot more spectacular.
By the time we were done with sightseeing, it was close to 1:30, and we realized that a lot of the cafes and restaurants were closing at 2 pm, so we found a Chinese restaurant near the city center and drove over – parking the car at the first available spot. Walking over to the restaurant, we realized it was a takeaway place with no place to sit, so we started looking for other options. I noticed a South African cuisine cafe and, curious to try it out, we went over there – KG Cafe.
KG Cafe #
KG Cafe is a South African cafe serving traditional South African dishes such as Bunny Chow, Bobotie, Boerewors, Great Gatsby, Koeksisters, and many more traditional dishes. A lot of the dishes seemed to be Indian-inspired, going by the description of the food. All of them looked really good, so we ordered the South African Tasting Board, which had a selection of dishes including Bunny Chow, Bobotie, Vetkoek, and more. The most amazing thing was the chef who came out to deliver the food was a Bangalorean – a Malleshwaram huduga – and we spoke a bit in Kannada. The food was really good, and we were so stuffed that we did not end up eating dinner!
Bellies full, I picked up one more coffee for the road, walking back to the car, passing by several of Kiama’s heritage-listed buildings – including the Post Office, Courthouse, Council Chambers, and a building that Jo and I called the “Dracula House”.
Bombo Headland #
Once we were back in our car, it was time to head back home. But before that, we had one final stop – Bombo Headland Quarry & Geological Site. A vast open area and former quarry, Bombo offers some spectacular basalt columns that make for some really good photographs. You can also have a really nice long walk, climbing down from the top of the cliffs to the ocean level. It was already pretty late and sunlight was fading away, so we didn’t get to do any walks – just stood there for a bit, checking out the ocean views, and headed back to the car to start driving towards Sydney to wrap up an amazing day.
Thoughts on the Haval Jolion #
As mentioned above, one of the reasons to take this trip was I wanted to try out the Haval Jolion. Now I’m not buying a car right away, but it’s good to do some long distance test drives - probably the best way to understand the car better. The Haval Jolion is a small size SUV. The one that we rented is a hybrid - it comes with a small battery pack that powers the electric engine for a short distance / at slower speeds.
The Haval Jolion was a comfortable car to sit in. The seats were quite supportive. Design-wise, it doesn’t look too bad, but wasn’t anything spectacular. The car was okay to drive – being a hybrid, it was quite silent for the most part, but occasionally the petrol engine would kick in, which wasn’t too loud either – as long as you were not going uphill.
The moment you start applying throttle, the roughness and loudness of the engine kick in, and not in a very nice way. My main frustrations with the car were:
- Annoying ‘safety aids’: the number one cause of my stress while driving was the Haval’s really annoying, ridiculous safety aids. The Haval comes with a driver monitoring setup which barks at you with inane prompts like “Hey don’t stray,” a lane keeping assist that is extremely sensitive and throws a big “Emergency Lane,” “Keeping activated” (in separate lines), which makes absolutely no sense, and a bong or beep every few minutes – it was just so annoying. These safety aids are more likely to be a huge distraction than a safety aid.
- No physical buttons – I know Tesla’s UI looks funky and stuff, but not having any physical dials for aircon is a nightmare, especially when the ‘safety aids’ mentioned above don’t let you change it easily.
- Weird steering column controls – I legit thought the steering column controls were broken because it didn’t let me switch to see fuel economy or the currently playing music on the heads-up display. I found out much later that I either have to disable the lane keeping assistance, or do an arcane incantation of holding the “OK button” for a few seconds, and then use the “back” button to navigate through the options. What a bizarre setup!
- Bad sound system – the sound system was just bad. The music sounded very hollow and tinny. I mean, I am no audiophile, but yeah, it was exceptionally poor.
This doesn’t mean I hated the car – it was just fine, but could have been so much better.
Maps & stats #
Here’s a quick map of the day trip:
We drove a total of 273 km.
Video #
Much like our previous trip, I captured a lot of videos on my Insta360 Go 3S and made a video out of the trip. Enjoy. Till the next trip!