The Southern Highlands of NSW lie South of Sydney and comprises Bowral, Maitland, Berry as main towns. There are however many little other places that form the lush green, mountainous, culturally rich country that forms the beautiful escape from rustle and bustle of Sydney.

Our first stop and base was Bowral, a historic town about 160 Km South of Sydney, took us about 3 hrs to get there with pit stops, lunch breaks and driver rests in between. This was in fact our second trip, the first one with our kid in pram, this time he was jumping around in Bong Bong street, the main arterial road of the town! Upon checking into a nearby hotel we went to have our lunch at Raw and Wild cafe, also a market place for rich organic and health food.

The highlight of the place was this huge wall art work depicting food, people, wild and travel all mixed up in a vibrant colors.

After lunch we slowly made our way to the town centre on the same stretch of main road. Bowral is a bustling and lively little town full of historical buildings, little alleys, modern cafes, shops, book stores and florists.

It is one of the key economic centres in the Southern Highlands region and forms a well connected hub along with its nearby sister towns like Maitland, Berry and Nowra. It is one of the major gate away spots for Sydney populace and the hotel prices are high in the season, comparable to other big towns. There are fashion shops selling Australian big brands and big Woolworths store similar to size in Sydney.

Although it is a small town there are plenty of choice when it comes to eateries. We opted by default for and Indian dinner right in the middle of town in the restaurant JB Indian as it was a public holiday and not many restaurantes were open for the night, but we were not disappointed. The Lamb Rogan Josh and butter chicken we ordered were comparable to any similar Indian restaurant in Sydney . Turns out, the restaurant was opened recently by an entrepreneur from Sydney.

In the morning we went to The Press Shop (https://www.thepressshopbowral.au), a stylish cafe with a bit of French vibe just off the main street, with the tables spilling out to the side walk.

We based ourselves in Bowral to explore the surrounding areas and specially the Fitzroy Falls! We also went to another Southern Highlands gem, Berry, passed through the picturesque little village of Kangaroo valley and Nowra. All of these will be in my up coming posts.

After spending a couple of days in the deep Snow Mountains range in the tourist hub village of Thredbo, we started to make our way down the slopes towards the North, to home in Sydney. During the six hour trip we passed through some mesmerising lakes, beautiful country towns, and typical Aussie open roads reminding you of cizilization through the presence of farm animals, mostly big cows.

Lake Jyndabyne dominates the landscape just down Thredbo and seems to have become a way of life for the people in the area as well as large number of tourists. The lake seemed to act almost like an ocean as people seem to be relaxing in the beach and doing water activities, with added advantage of having no sharks to worry about!

If you are staying near the lake you can stay in a hotel that boundaries the lake and basically live right on it, and go boating, kayaking and other stuff.

On our return trip from Tasmania – Melbourne we stopped over in Thredbo, Kosciuszko National park. The town in the middle of the mountains in the park is also part of the Snowy mountains range in the Southern NSW. It is one of the few place where proper snow falls to enjoy and do related sports and activities.

Although the high season for the place is Winter, when these barren hills would have been covered in a metre thick snow, and the place would have been full of snow tourists, it seems the buzz is good in Summer too.

Compared to my last visit here in the Winter time, crowd is different, During Summer its more of a family vacation hot spot rather than the snow lovers. It still has a little bit of alpine feeling with like minded hikers, adventurers gathering around in the square of the main area of town.

Plenty of activities to do if you like outdoors – hiking obviously, bikes, and just enjoy driving into the woods, great lakes nearby.

We saw lot of families Paddling through the lakes too. The views you get are worth every moment you spend there.

This return journey from return leg of our tour of Tasmania, started when we got out of the Spirit of Tasmania ferry in Geelong. We took a cab to our Melbourne CBD hotel to rest for the night before heading to Sydney in our SUV. After breakfast and coffee we took a last stroll around Fed square and started the drive up north at around mid day, much later than we had planned. Passing through the plains of Victoria, the pastures littered with cows we arrived at Keotong, in the western foot hills of Kosciuszko National past in NSW. With multiple stops to fuel both the car and the family we arrived pretty late around half past eight in the evening, nearly six and a half hour after we left Melbourne, much later that we anticipated.

We stopped at a local pub for a quick dinner of country snitzel and pizza before heading off to the mountains and the dense forest. We were told by the pub owner lady that we better rush before it gets dark.

When i took Right to head into the mountains, my heart sank, it was 96 km to Thredbo, the place we were supposed to spend the night, we might spend the night in the forest! The road through the mountain was thrilling, with silhouette of the mountains on our left looming while a dense forest on the left throughout. I felt as if I could hear the mountains breathe. The road was narrower than the other similar forest ones I had driven in NSW but was high quality and well maintained. We could see the shadows of gorges, mountains and trees right next to us and would fill us with sense of scariness and beauty at the same time.

On the dark road we had to dodge quite a few wild life running in front of us. Sometimes we could see some cars stopped in a small open area by the road, probably the hikers and travellers spending night in the woods.

We arrived at our Alpine hotel in Thredbo little after 10 at night and so glad to see the 24/7 reception open and a receptionist expecting and welcoming us. Near the hotel we could still see some hikers making their way back to their place of stay as well, in the dark.

Our hotel was a well built wooden mansion with rooms full of authentic snowy rustic taste. It felt truly like being in a wooden log house or a forest cabin. We could finally go to bed at midnight, all tired, we went to dreamland easily.

After driving more than 1000 km in 24 hrs through towns, villages, mountains, dense forests, swerving and trying not to kill wild life running in front of the car, rivers, I know what I want to do next..drive more! That is how I felt when we finally arrived in Sydney.