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Oceania : Australia : New South Wales : South Coast : Narooma

Narooma

Narooma is a pleasant coastal town in the South Coast of New South Wales. It has beautiful beaches and a salt water inlet. Population is about 3,400.

Get in

By plane

Nearest airport is at Moruya.

By bus

Premier Motor Service runs coaches from Sydney and Melbourne. [1]

Get around

See

Do

  • Day trip or overnight stay on Montague Island, 9km off-shore.
  • Scuba diving on Montague Island with one of several Narooma operators:
    • Scuba Diving Narooma, [2].  
    • Narooma Charters, ☎ +61 (0)407 909 111, [3]. $66 single dive, $88 double dive, hire extra.  
    • Top Shelf Tours, ☎ +61 (0)438 981 861, [4].  
    • Ocean Hut Narooma, ☎ +61 (0)2 44762278, [5].  
  • Blues & Rockabilly Festival, [6]. Labour Day weekend (Sept/Oct) 

Buy

Eat

Drink

Sleep

  • Narooma YHA, 243 Princes Highway, ☎ +61 2 4476 4440(fax: +61 2 4476 5660), [7]. Narooma YHA is a very clean and comfortable hostel/budget motel. All rooms have a bathroom.$28 per person dorm bed, $60 per room double or twin (more at Labour weekend).  
  • La Salle Motel & Conference Centre, 153 Princes Highway, ☎ +61 2 4476 0000(fax: +61 2 4476 0011), [8]. From $92.  

Stay safe

The bar crossing that boats must take exiting Narooma is the most dangerous in New South Wales. Take extreme care if skippering a boat across it, and you should have experience handling a boat in high swell. It should only be crossed during the incoming tide. You must contact the Coastal Patrol on channel 86 prior to beginning the crossing. When leaving, circle inside the channel a couple of times to familiarize yourself with conditions and then cross diagonally from the northern side of the bar. Once you begin crossing do not turn around and attempt to abort the crossing. All passengers in a boat crossing the bar must be wearing life jackets throughout the crossing, both by law and in the interests of safety.

Returning boats should also come in on the incoming tide and take the reverse of the path they took going out (that is, diagonally from south to north). Contact Coastal Patrol before the crossing and afterwards to confirm that you crossed safely. If conditions in the bar have deteriorated and you cannot re-enter, you will need to go south to Bermagui's harbor.

Get out

Head to places such as Moruya and Batemans Bay to the north or Bega and on to Eden to the south.

This page was last edited at 23:39, on 10 October 2008 by Wikitravel user Nurg. Based on work by Colin Jensen, Wikitravel user(s) Hypatia, Eunice and Nzpcmad and Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel.