Trip to Fitzoy Falls & Berrima, NSW

Having picked up our new car, we were quite eager to go on a day trip to put the car through its paces over a reasonably long distance. There's no shortage of lovely places to visit around Sydney, we chose the Southern Highlands as a good first stop since we're fairly close to the motorway heading down south. Fitzroy falls was the chosen destination.

Originally known as Yarrunga, Fitzroy Falls is a village in the Wingecarribee Shire, located within the Southern Highlands region of New South Wales, Australia. The village was renamed after the 81-foot waterfall. we also decided to head over to Berrima to check it out. Entering our planned stops into A Better Route Planner indicated that we would require charging the car, so I figured we'd stop by Mittagong.

But of course, first was breakfast. I prepared some toast and eggs. We packed some protein bars, fruits, and a water bottle for the ride and drove away. The lack of caffeine was a conscious choice - we decided to stop by Two by Four coffee shop in Blacktown.

Our usual large cappuccino for me and almond flat white for Jo was picked, and thus we started for Fitzroy Falls. We took the route of M7 joining into M31 and then and it was a pretty smooth drive. There wasn't much traffic and the Geely behaved quite well over the motorway, making the journey go by quite fast.

We reached Fitzroy Falls in about 2 hours and parked the car. We weren't really dressed for long hikes, so we decided to head to the Fitzroy Falls viewing platform. There were lots of display boards about different species of plants and animals found around that were quite informative.

We saw that the Jersey lookout wasn't too far away so walked over to there to see spectacular sights of the waterfall.

It was really nice to be here. We are definitely planning to return during Spring time for some of the longer walking trails. From here, we decided to head to Berrima.

Berrima is a historic village in the Southern Highlands. Once we reached Berrima, we parked our car and went for a walk. First, we went over to Berrima Court House.

Berrima Court House was built in the 1830s as a sandstone building and is now a museum. The court house now features a sound and light tour that simulates two different trials, complete with lights, actors taking up roles as well as realistic mannequins portraying the jurors & the accused. The tour also talks about the history of the town, how it was built and how the railways changed the course of the town.

After the tour, we walked around the Berrima town and found a very interesting lolly shop named Lolly Swagman! Yes, that's the name alright. They had a huge amount of sweets, chocolates, fudges and more.

We bought some lollies and then started our trip back. I initially thought of stopping the car at Highlands Hub, Mittagong to charge the car and then head to Gumnut Patisserie for lunch, but realised the car would have charged by the time we walked over to the patisserie. So we stopped at Highlands Hub to charge the car. While it was being charged, I stayed in the car while Jo went over to Priceline just across the road to pick up some supplements. By the time she was back, the car had charged enough, so we went over to Eden Brewery for lunch.

Eden Brewery is an independent craft brewer located in Mittagong. While they don't have a restaurant, there is a food truck attached. We ordered couple of chicken burgers and sweet potato fries for food. Since I was driving, I opted for the simple ginger ale while Jo tried Eden's IPA which she tells me was phenomenal. The food was pretty decent - nothing great but not terrible either.

Gumnut Patisserie is well known for their pastries and pies, and given they were right across the road, we walked over to pick up a pepper steak pie along with a caramel mousse cake. The caramel mousse cake was very rich and decadent, though the cake-y bits of the dessert were fairly average. I also picked up a large cappuccino for the drive back home.

We covered about 294 kms in 4hrs 45 minutes, and it was a comfortable drive. Looking forward to more drives!