Karuah NSW June 29 2026
What a great idea; leaving from Mittagong rather than Canberra. Once-upon-a-time it would have been no problem to do the entire trip in one go, but now it's just a whole lot easier and less stressful to do the two-hop trip.
We did the 300km in 3 hours and 15 minutes, so a pretty good trip really, Who knows how much the M7 , the K2 and the tunnel cost, our tag never uttered a sound!
Karuah is lovely, right on the waters of Port Stephens without the people and 40 kph signs, well, almost without people, there are new housing estates popping up all over the place, as there is everywhere in Australia. The Caravan Park is always pleasant, well maybe with the exception of the year it was a quagmire, and you always must take the obligatory stroll out along the wonkiest jetty is Australia.
We were in earlier than expected so we went for a cruise up the road to the Tea Gardens and Hawkes Nest. Last time we were in Tea Garden was in 1979 with my brother Paul and his family. We were training for the Birdman rally to be held in Sydney later that year. Unfortunately, our #1 daughter, who was only a few months old at the time, decided that she did not like camping, and so in the middle if the night we packed up and returned to our home in Sydney. Ah, those were the days.
There's not a lot to say about Karuah, especially since the highway bypassed it in 2004 and it became the proverbial 'sleepy hollow'. There are a few shops in town on what was once the Pacific Highway, nothing much seems to have changed in the years we have been coming here on our annual migrations.
Anyhow, there was one place that has some printed images out front on its little picket fence, and rather than bore you with my snaps, I took a picture of one of them. I refer to them as 'found' images. It’s a lovely photo of the bridge when the then highway used to run over it, and I know I couldn’t do better so here it is:
