Sapphire Coast, NSW
Woodbine Park Eco Cabins
Five nights over Christmas 2020, in cabins on a gravel road that runs into Bournda National Park — booked by four families, travelled by two, which is what that December was like. Kangaroos at the door within twenty minutes of unpacking, a possum on the tree on Christmas night, and black trunks over green regrowth all the way down to Eden, one year after the fires.
- Where
- 111 Widgeram Road, Bournda NSW 2548 — about 6 km north of Merimbula
- Stayed
- 23–28 December 2020
- In
- Two-bedroom cabins ×3, three families
- Getting there
- About 460 km from Sydney, six hours
- Trips
- One
The record
23 – 28 December 2020
Five nights over Christmas at the end of a gravel road inside a national park — booked by four families, travelled by two, and very nearly a run north to the Gold Coast instead.
The booking was made on 2 November 2020 for four cabins, eight adults and seven children, and shrank twice before anybody left Sydney. That was the summer after the first pandemic year, when plans moved around a good deal: a parallel itinerary running north to Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and the Gold Coast was held at the same time, and abandoned. The south coast won.
It was also one year almost to the week after the Black Summer fires came through this part of the coast. That shows up in the photographs more than we expected it to — black trunks standing over green regrowth, all the way down to Eden.
What follows is the record of five days: the cabins and what came to the door, the national park at the end of the road, the drive south to the Pinnacles, and the days out north along the coast.
This trip happened because of a gap in the rules. 2020 had been a year of being shut in. The government eased the travel restrictions for a stretch of that summer, and we took the window. A fair part of the excitement was simply that we were allowed to go somewhere at all.
Four families booked it and two of us went, and the paperwork never caught up. The reservation went in on 2 November for five nights and four cabins. On 1 December we asked the park to cut it to two families and three nights. What came back cancelled one cabin and left the dates alone. The second cancellation was settled with the park directly and never appeared in writing at all — and the nights were never reduced: our own photographs run from the afternoon of the 23rd through to the 28th. We arrived as two families in two cabins for five nights, which is not what any document said.
If you take one practical thing from this page, take that one. When you change a group booking made through a booking site, ring the property and ask what they are actually holding for you. The platform's version and the park's version had stopped agreeing three weeks before we got there, and only one of them was going to be true when we pulled up. None of it was the park's fault, and none of it spoiled anything — it is simply what booking for eleven people in December 2020 was like.
The kangaroos are what everyone remembers. On the second morning we opened the door and there were more of them outside the cabins than we could count, which is not a thing that happens at a caravan park. Things kept moving through after dark all week.
Our younger son was thirteen months old and had never been in a pool. We put him in with a small float and he was frightened — properly frightened, crying — and then somewhere in the middle of it he worked out that he was floating, and the argument was over. Everyone ended up in the water with him. Of five days on the Sapphire Coast, that is the half hour that gets talked about.
The evenings were the barbecue and crokinole, night after night, which is the whole case for a self-contained cabin with a grill over anything with a restaurant attached.
The days were the coast, and one afternoon indoors. North Tura Beach up the road; south to the Pinnacles and the lookouts through Ben Boyd National Park — renamed Beowa in 2022, so it is Beowa you will find on a current map; and an afternoon at Top Fun in Merimbula for ten-pin bowling, the arcade car racing and mini golf, which is where you end up when the weather turns.
One afternoon went on the water at Merimbula. The boardwalk runs 3.4 km return around the edge of the tidal lake, flat the whole way and fine with a pram, with working oyster leases out on the water on one side and houses looking straight across it on the other. It is the walk from that week that comes back most clearly, and the only thing we did all week that we have no photograph of at all. It is being rebuilt through 2026 — the details are under what there is to do, below, and the Market Street car park is shut for the duration, so read that before you plan a day around it.
Towards the end of the week we walked into a family we knew from Sydney, staying at the same park, a long way down the coast from either of our homes, in a year when hardly anybody was travelling. We had a barbecue together. It is the kind of coincidence that does not happen, and it happened here.
One
The cabins, and what came to the door
We arrived on the afternoon of 23 December. The first photograph of the trip was taken at 17:58 that day, and it is a kangaroo standing on the gravel about two metres from the sliding door.
This is the part of the park that no listing quite prepares you for. The operator’s own description mentions kangaroos and wallabies at the door, and for once that is not marketing copy — it is simply what happens, several times a day, because the cabins are built inside the bush rather than beside it.
The animals do not stop at dusk either. Both of these were taken at 21:54 on Christmas night, on a tree perhaps five metres from the cabin steps.
Worth knowing. Kangaroos this relaxed around people are still wild animals, and a large male can do real damage if it decides you are a problem. National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) advice for the parks along this coast is to keep your distance, never feed them, and keep children close — which, with the cabins where they are, means paying attention rather than doing anything unusual.
Two
The pool, the grill and Christmas dinner
Three families, five nights, and one solar-heated saltwater pool with a separate children’s pool beside it. Most of the days ended in the same place.
The board is crokinole — octagonal frame, three scoring rings, eight pegs and a hole in the middle. It is the sort of thing that quietly decides an evening when you have five nights, three families and one long table.
Christmas dinner was cooked outside on a charcoal kettle, on the concrete under the cabin awning, in the rain shadow of the veranda. Paneer and capsicum on skewers, and a fire pit going by 22:40.
One practical note. The park’s own material describes a pot-belly stove in the cabins with wood supplied. In late December that is irrelevant, but it tells you what this place is really built for, which is winter.
Three
Bournda National Park, at the end of the road
Widgeram Road runs into the park. On 27 December we were at the North Tura Beach access at 08:40 and had the beach to ourselves.
The signpost is worth reading before you set out. Bournda Lagoon is one kilometre north along the beach and headland, or five kilometres inland via Sandy Creek — and the sign says plainly that there is no bridge at the creek crossing. With small children, the beach route is the one that works.
Cost. Bournda National Park charges a vehicle entry fee — $8 per vehicle per day at the time of writing. An NPWS annual pass covers it if you are going in and out repeatedly, which from these cabins you will be.
Four
Christmas Day, south to the Pinnacles and Eden
An hour’s drive south to the eroded orange and white cliffs in what was then Ben Boyd National Park — renamed Beowa National Park in 2023 — and back through Eden for the last of the light over Twofold Bay.
The walks from the car park are short and signposted: the lookout at 600 metres, the loop at one kilometre graded easy with some steps, the beach at 470 metres. It is a genuinely easy stop with young children, which is not something you can say about most of the good views on this coast.
The burnt trunks in the last photograph are not incidental. The 2019–20 fires ran through this section of the park, and a year later the black was still standing over the green.
We finished Christmas Day at Eden Rotary Lookout on Bramble Street, at about half past five, looking out over Twofold Bay. It is free, it has a car park, toilets, picnic tables and free gas barbecues, and a 1.5 kilometre return walking trail runs from it. Boyds Tower stands on the headland across the water.
Whales. Eden Rotary Lookout carries a whale-watching panel because humpbacks come right into Twofold Bay to rest and feed on the migration, which runs roughly May to November and peaks in spring. Late December is outside it, so on Christmas Day the panel is decoration. If whales are the reason you are coming, come in the middle of the year, not at Christmas.
Five
Pambula, Tathra, Bermagui — and a wet Boxing Day
The rest of the week ran north and south along the coast: a headland track at Pambula Beach on Boxing Day, Tathra on the 27th, and the Blue Pool at Bermagui on the drive home.
Boxing Day afternoon also went, in part, to a bowling alley in Merimbula — which is exactly the sort of thing you want to know exists when you have three families and the weather turns.
Last stop on the way home was the Blue Pool at Bermagui, an hour and a half north — a rectangular pool cut into the rock shelf at the foot of a cliff, with a smaller children’s pool beside it and the swell breaking straight onto the rocks a few metres away.
About the stingray. They sit half-buried in the sand in the shallows here and they are easy to miss. Shuffling your feet rather than stepping down is the standard advice, and it is worth telling children before they run in.
Getting there
How far it is, and how to get there without a car
One map, and one question: how far south, north or inland is this actually? Then, if you are not driving, what runs — and what does not.
Fly
Rex flies Sydney to Merimbula Airport, about an hour and a quarter.
The airport is 10 km from the cabins — closer than the town is.
Rex publishes no network timetable, so check their schedule tool for the day you want.
Do not count on Qantas: the council airport page still lists QantasLink, but qantas.com is not currently selling Sydney–Merimbula.
Coach
Premier Motor Service runs Sydney Central to Eden every day, calling at Merimbula. It is about ten hours and it is the only single-vehicle option. Northbound it leaves Merimbula at 06:30 and reaches Central at 16:15.
Train and coach
The other way in is via Canberra: NSW TrainLink train to Canberra, then the 771 coach down to Merimbula. Transport for NSW quotes Sydney to Eden at about nine hours, ticketed as one journey.
The last leg. The last 7 km needs a car or a taxi.
Merimbula is easy to reach; the cabins are not.
Widgeram Road is off Sapphire Coast Drive, and while Sapphire Coast Buslines route 891 must physically pass the junction we could not confirm it stops there — and it would still be a 2 km walk in.
The Flexibus on-demand zone is a 6 km radius around Merimbula and does not list Bournda.
Hire a car at the airport, or ring Merimbula Taxi Service on (02) 6495 2103.
Checked September 2026 Check before you book.
Every service above was checked against the operator’s own timetable rather than a travel site, but timetables change and some operators publish no frequency at all — where that is so, we have said so instead of guessing.
Confirm on transportnsw.info or with the operator before you rely on a connection.
If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
Worth the drive
What there is to do
The park sits inside Bournda National Park, six kilometres north of Merimbula, so the beaches and the walks start at the end of the road.
Everything below is within about an hour except Bermagui and Green Cape, which are each a day of their own.
Prices and hours were checked in September 2026 against each operator’s own material.
Where an operator does not publish a price or an hour, we have said so rather than repeat what a directory site claims.
- Bournda National Park — the beach at the end of the roadNorth Tura Beach is signposted off Widgeram Road, with steps to the sand 80 metres from the car park.Bournda Lagoon is one kilometre north along the beach and headland, or five kilometres inland via Sandy Creek — and the NPWS sign says plainly there is no bridge at the creek crossing, so with young children take the beach.Wallagoot Lake and Bondi Lake are in the same park.$8 per vehicle per day
- Magic Mountain, MerimbulaThe big family fun park on Sapphire Coast Drive, ten minutes from the cabins.It runs a season, not a year — the park sells its passes as valid September to April, so it is shut for most of winter.The 2026/27 season runs from Thursday 17 September 2026 to April 2027.One-day entry for that season: under 5 free, ages 5–12 $60, 13–59 $68, 60 and over $39, with $5 a head off if you book online. A season pass is $135.Opening hours change week to week and they publish them as a calendar rather than a fixed timetable — check it before you drive over. (02) 6495 2299.$60–$68 adult/child, under 5 free
- Top Fun, Merimbula — the wet-weather answer99 Main Street.Ten-pin bowling, Zone 3 laser tag, an eighteen-hole pirate mini golf course, an arcade and air hockey, open seven days from 10am.Admission is free and you pay for what you play, but bowling needs a booking.We spent a wet Boxing Day here and it is the single most useful thing on this list when three families are stuck indoors. (02) 6495 3091.Free entry, pay per activity
- Sapphire Aquatic Centre, Pambula BeachThe only indoor heated pool in the shire, about fifteen minutes away.Open Monday to Friday 6am–7pm, Saturday 8.30am–5pm, Sunday and public holidays 10am–5pm; closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Good Friday.A swim was $6.50 adult, $5.30 child and $19.50 family on the last published schedule, but that schedule dates from July 2024 and the council was consulting on 2026–27 fees, so treat those as approximate. (02) 6494 3100.About $6.50 adult, $19.50 family
- Beowa National Park — the PinnaclesAn hour south, past Eden.This was Ben Boyd National Park when we visited and was renamed Beowa National Park in 2023, so older signs and older directions still say Ben Boyd.The eroded orange-and-white cliffs are 600 metres from the car park, the loop is a kilometre graded easy with some steps, and the beach is 470 metres.Genuinely manageable with small children.Free
- Eden Rotary LookoutBramble Street, Eden — panoramic views over Twofold Bay, with historic Boyds Tower on the headland opposite.Car park, toilets, picnic tables, free gas barbecues and a playground, and a 1.5 kilometre return walking trail from the lookout.Humpbacks come right into the bay to rest and feed on the migration, and spring is the peak.We spent the last of Christmas Day here.Free
- Eden Killer Whale Museum184 Imlay Street, Eden — about 40 minutes south, and the obvious stop if you are heading down to the Pinnacles anyway.Monday to Saturday 9.15am–3.45pm, Sunday 10.15am–2.45pm, closed Christmas Day.Adults $15, children 5–15 $5, under 5 free. An annual pass is $30 adult, $10 child.$15 adult, $5 child
- Merimbula Aquarium, at the wharfOn the wharf at the end of Lake Street, open Wednesday to Sunday 10am–4pm and closed Monday and Tuesday.Small, and squarely aimed at children.They do not publish single-visit prices on their own site, so ring (02) 6495 4446 rather than trust a directory figure.Not published — phone first
- Pambula Beach and the Jiguma walkFifteen minutes south.The walking track climbs from the beach through open forest on stepped track — short, steep in parts, and the views down through the trunks to the sand are the reason to do it.The beach itself is patrolled in summer, which North Tura is not.Patrol seasons and hours change — Surf Life Saving Australia’s Beachsafe has the current position for every Australian beach.Free
- Tathra BeachHalf an hour north.A long patrolled beach with the old sea wharf at the northern end, and the closest thing on this stretch to a normal beach day with a surf club and a kiosk in reach.We spent 27 December here.Free
- The Blue Pool, BermaguiAn hour and a half north, and worth building the drive home around.A rectangular ocean pool cut into the rock shelf at the foot of a cliff, with a smaller children’s pool beside it and the swell breaking on the rocks a few metres away.Steep steps down and no shade.Free
- Bega Cheese Heritage Centre11–13 Lagoon Street, Bega, about 35 minutes inland. Open 9am to 5pm.They publish neither an entry price nor which days they close, so ring (02) 6491 7762 before you make the drive.The cheese tasting is the draw.Not published — phone first
- Whale watching — but not at ChristmasThe humpback migration past this coast runs roughly May to November.Every headland here carries a whale-watching panel, and in late December they are decoration.If whales are the reason you are coming, come mid-year.Free from the headlands
Checked September 2026 Check before you go.
Fees, opening hours and seasonal closures change, and we have not been to all of these.
Distances are approximate — put the name in your maps app rather than trusting our figure.
If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
Local, for us
Groceries, mandirs and where to eat
This is the honest version, and for once most of it is a list of things that are not there.
The Bega Valley has no Indian grocery, no mandir and no gurudwara, and no dedicated vegetarian restaurant that we could find.
If any of that matters to how your family travels, the practical answer is to shop before you leave.
Checked September 2026 against operators’ own sources.
Indian grocery
- There is none in the shireRaymond Grocery at 211 Carp Street, Bega opened in 2023 and was reported closed in May 2024.The local paper’s story on its opening was headlined around it saving people the trip to Canberra, which tells you what the alternative is.We could find no replacement anywhere in Merimbula, Pambula, Bega, Tathra or Eden.Bring your own spices, dal and atta — the nearest reliable Indian grocers are in Canberra, about three hours away.
Gurudwaras and mandirs
- Nothing within two hoursThere is no mandir and no gurudwara in the Bega Valley, and none we could find at Cooma, Narooma or Batemans Bay either. The nearest are all roughly three hours away in either direction.
- Sri Vishnu Shiva Mandir, Canberra82 Mawson Drive, Mawson ACT 2607 — about three hours west over the Brown Mountain and through Cooma.
- Gurdwara Sahib Canberra15 Hickey Court, Weston ACT 2611 — about three hours. We have this address from several consistent listings rather than from the gurudwara’s own site, so confirm before you drive.
- Guru Nanak Darbar South Coast, Nowra13 Westbrook Road, Nowra — also about three hours, and the sensible option if you are driving back towards Sydney rather than out to Canberra.
Pure vegetarian
- None we could find within an hourNothing fully vegetarian is listed in Merimbula, Pambula, Tathra, Eden or Candelo.What you will find is ordinary restaurants with vegetarian dishes on the menu, including both of the Indian places below.This is a negative from directory searching rather than a confirmed fact, so treat it as “we could not find one”, not “there is none”.
Indian restaurants
- Legacy of India, Merimbula5/17 Merimbula Drive.Lunch Friday to Sunday 12–2, dinner every day 5–9, closed Mondays seasonally.bring your own (BYO), not licensed — their own site welcomes BYO wine with a small corkage per bottle, whatever the restaurant directories say.Dine-in and takeaway, with online ordering.We would not rely on delivery, because they do not offer it themselves. (02) 6427 0050.
- Cafe Tandoori, Pambula1/22 Toallo Street, Pambula, fifteen minutes south. Tuesday to Sunday, 11.30–2 and 5–8.30. They publish nothing about alcohol or about takeaway on their own site, so ring and ask rather than assume. (02) 6409 5723.
- Two options, and that is the listFor a shire this size that is not unusual, but it is worth knowing before you arrive expecting choice. Curry Bee in Bega has had no online activity since 2020 and we are not listing it as open. Legacy of India’s Eden branch closed in June 2023 — older directory listings still show it.
Checked September 2026 Please check before you drive.
These were verified online, not by us in person, and small businesses close, move and change names without updating their listings.
Distances and times are rough — put the address in your maps app rather than trusting our figure.
If something here is wrong or has closed, tell us and we will fix it.
Where next
Other places in the record
Distances are straight-line from this park to that one, which is enough to tell you whether two trips could be one.
Something on this page wrong, or out of date? We would rather be told than be wrong — tell us about this page. And if there is something you wish this site covered and it does not, tell us that too.