A friend and I took advantage of all these when we took a mid-week break to Mollymook and stayed in 48 Lockhart Avenue. We arrived late Monday night and after unpacking we quickly claimed our rooms. “You can have the master bedroom”, my mate chimed, “and I’ll have the other master bedroom.”

The holiday house itself is wonderful. Open plan living that flows from a huge kitchen area allows for conversation and cooking simultaneously! With only two of us in the house, we didn’t even enter half of the available rooms. Nor did we use the second living area. But in a place that could comfortably sleep eight people (probably more) it’s not surprising really.

We woke up to a beautifully clear Tuesday morning, only to find Mollymook beach resembling a lake. Whilst Sydney copped wind and rain, it also copped most of the swell. My predictions had been slightly off, so we hit the road. Eventually we settled on Durras and managed to sneak a wave in there. We relaxed on a headland with lunch before heading back to Mollymook to explore a little more.

We dined at the Beach Hut on Mollymook beach that night and ate some of the best burgers we’ve ever had. You can’t go wrong with a Mexican Beef Burger, with all the trimmings. Spectacular!

Wednesday morning was a lazy start, but we packed up and headed north by mid morning and surfed in the Shellharbour region. We arrived home to hear tales of rain and wind, and we hadn’t seen a cloud in three days. Thank god for the South Coast.

And thank you to Beach and Bay for the junket. It’s a beautiful part of the world.

Mollymook is a beachside town with beautiful unspoilt beaches and a laid back attitude. Framed by country towns like Milton with its rolling hills, Mollymook is where the countryside meets the ocean. Mollymook, with its ocean vistas and stunning, world class beaches should be a famous, tourist spot with high rise hotels and malls, thank goodness it is not! Mollymook has managed to stay sleepy but for how much longer who knows. Mollymook can boast a world famous chef with his own restaurant while also offering fish and chips at the local shops!

The Occasion – The June Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend

I decided to go to Mollymook as a tourist for the June Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend and stay at one of the holiday houses Beach & Bay Realty offers for rent, 48 Lockhart Ave. This property is 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, fully renovated single level with plenty of living and entertaining areas. It sleeps 8 so there was plenty of room for our group of 1 family of 4, 1 couple and 1 single.

It is low season in Mollymook so if I had been paying which I was not, the cost of accommodation would have been very reasonable at $800 for all of us (max 8 guests)! More money to spend at all the boutique shops at Milton!

I know Mollymook well as I have family that live there so the plan was roughly: Scarecrow Festival, Milton shopping, Mollymook beach, Mogo Zoo, Pilgrims breakfast, Socceroos vs Germany, Rick Stein’s seafood restaurant, Breakers at Mollymook, Cupitts Winery…

It was a last minute thing so when I tried to book Rick Stein’s Seafood restaurant at Bannisters for Saturday night the week before I was told it was fully booked for Sat and Sun night (was 1^st on waiting list but never got the call up), then tried Cupitt’s Winery for Sunday long lunch it was booked out as well… As it turns out if I had read the Milton Ulladulla times ($1.60 at newsagency and great local paper!), which I did Sat morning I would have realised that most of the restaurants had arranged special functions, live bands, wine tours and tastings, special guests etc .

From the Sutherland Shire it was a 2 ½ hr trip to Mollymook with no traffic and because we left Sydney at 4pm on Friday, it was a good run all the way to Milton where my car passengers and I stopped to enjoy a $15 Mexican dinner at Pilgrims – an institution on the South Coast, a vegetarian cafe open for brekkie and lunch but has in the last 12 months introduced the occasional $15 Mexican dinner on Friday and Sat nights, long weekends and any other night they feel like it!

The owners of Pilgrims practise the Buddhist faith so they do not drink, however they don’t mind if guests do so, bringing your own wine and wine glasses is par for the course here or use their water tumblers for the not so fussy drinker! The menu is limited to the standard Mexican fare of nachos, burritos, enchiladas and tortillas but the plate sizes are huge and everything is fresh, healthy and delicious.

For $15 you can’t go wrong, you also can’t go directionally wrong as it is on the Princes Highway in Milton on the right hand side, ie it is on your direct path to Mollymook, no detours. (5mins to final destination)

There is an IGA supermarket (open till 10pm on Friday evenings) diagonally across the road with bottle shop underneath. After dinner we got our essentials for the holiday house ie toilet paper, toothpaste (forgot to pack), milk and nibblies and more wine…

We arrived at our long weekend holiday house which was renovated, spacious and very well equipped and made a dash for the best rooms before the others arrived!

Saturday we headed off to Milton for the Scarecrow Festival, which is a 3 day festival, always on the long weekend and where Milton puts on a show for the tourists with stalls, jumping castles, farm animals, bands, school performances, and scarecrows. I didn’t get to the bottom of how the scarecrow theme came about and how this came about but basically local residents, businesses and organisations make their own scarecrows and they sit out the front of the school, shop or house for viewing, prizes awarded.

I love Milton, it has great boutique shops like Wild Poppies, Basque, Home at Last, Panache, Home Address, Afterglow, Sarah Gabriell’s etc etc. The idea was to have breakfast at Pilgrims (the best breakfast on the South Coast), then lose the boyfriends, husbands and kids to shop till you drop. If you want to buy things that no one else can get, if you want friends to say “Where did you get that!” and know they will have to drive 2 1/2 hrs south to copy you, then this is what you have to do.

Another tip for first timers to Milton is if you have male in toe, you must enter Pilgrims Cafe via the back covered deck so that they don’t see the big sign out the front that says VEGETARIAN cafe. If you can get them inside and order the food sans bacon you will be fine as the food and the coffee is sensational but for the poor females that don’t take head of this advice, you will put up with unnecessary brain damage about the no meat thing, trust me, been there, done that. Once the male in your life has eaten the food, he will be sold.  Pilgrims is famous for its blissburgers as well (lunch).

I had already window shopped the night before so I go straight to Wild Poppies where I proceed to lose a few weeks salary, there for 3 hours with my sister and later with my mum who buys the whole store!  Wild Poppies is a fairly recent edition to Milton but Kerry and her team have great stuff!

Lots of scarecrows inbetween, meet up with the kids in our group and we lose a few hours at the kids carnival. The weather is sensational so we divide up for the afternoon and some go and play golf, a few of us walk along Mollymook beach, then dinner at Ulladulla “Yes I am Thai”.

Sunday we can’t believe the sunshine so we decide to go early to Mogo Zoo, about 1 ½ hrs  drive south of Mollymook, 10 mins south of Batemans Bay and a zoo for endangered animals.  This zoo is a real treat, I have been here before to visit the white lions when my sister-in-law Becky was a zookeeper. The zoo is famous for the white lions but also has over 200 animals, 42 rare and exotic species and at $23 for adults and $12 for children 3yrs plus it is great value.

But Sunday is all about preparing for the Socceroos World Cup game and getting up at 4.30am on Monday so we are back at the house early afternoon to enjoy all the living areas, read mags, sit in the sun and try and get to bed for an early one. The International Restaurant at Ulladulla gets a pizza order from us so we can stay in. Seriously great pizza, very authentic.

When I didn’t win the Milton Scarecrow Raffle and the first prize which was “Bannisters Passion Pack of 2 nights at Bannisters Point Lodge with a Rick Stein seafood dinner thrown in”, it was probably a sign of things to come. I think I will skip over the Monday morning soccer game and spend the time praying for a miracle against Ghana! I would like to mention that my group all did very well getting up and supporting Australia though and we did utilise the massive kitchen to cook up a storm for breakfast, Masterchef eat your heart out.

The rest of the day we spent lazying around and we headed back to Sydney about 4pm, after a great long weekend with the only 1 hick up of a certain soccer game dampening our spirits.

]]> http://beachandbay.com.au/realestateblog/2010/06/18/mollymook-adventures/feed/ 1 http://beachandbay.com.au/realestateblog/2010/06/07/milton-festival/ http://beachandbay.com.au/realestateblog/2010/06/07/milton-festival/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:42:52 +0000 Murray Spencer http://beachandbay.com.au/realestateblog/?p=1756 I believe that so long as the Queen’s Birthday remains a public holiday on the Australian national calendar, Australia itself will forever cling to the motherland. You just can’t beat a Monday morning sleep in. And it does feel good to see Australia’s medal tally at the Commonwealth Games outweigh all other nations combined, especially when we’re slowly moving down the Olympic medal tally every four years.

So whilst we are part of the Commonwealth and we do have a monarch’s birthday to celebrate; what is there to do on this glorious long weekend? It’s quite obvious really… go to a Scarecrow Festival.

The township of Milton on the NSW South Coast is opening its proverbial doors to the world for its annual Scarecrow Festival this June long weekend. The festivities will run Saturday and Sunday, with markets, music and entertainment from 10:00 am. Sunday is the big day when everyone brings their Scarecrows to town to compete for the coverted ‘Best Scarecrow’ Certificate. This year the festival has adopted a theme: ‘Traditional Scarecrows from the 1800s’. There will be street theatre, farmyard animals, games, rides and music running all throughout the day.

So why not make a weekend of it? Mollymook and Milton have a range of fashion boutiques, antiques, home wares, pubs and parklands as well as the spectacular surrounding coastline. Check out our self-contained accommodation in Mollymook here (2 minutes down the road from Milton) or contact Beach and Bay for more information.

This home is renovated throughout and suitable to house a family on holidays. It has floorboards in the living areas (good for the sand), large open plan kitchen, all the modern conveniences such as dishwasher, DVD, stereo, front and rear yard, BBQ, plenty of off street parking and most importantly just a few minutes walk to the beach and Mollymook shops. My parents came down as well and they also loved that it is single level.

My husband and I tried a few local restaurants at Milton (Bacchus and Tipsy Fig, both excellent) and we all had breakfast at Pilgrims at Milton, apparently this is an institution on the South Coast!

I thoroughly recommend 48 Lockhart Ave, Mollymook for an affordable family holiday.

Nestled between pristine beaches and beautiful bushland, this creative community situated 3 hours from both Sydney and Canberra, boasts an enormous population of artisans and art-lovers, making Artfest a truly fulfilling experience! The theme for Artfest 09 is ‘community’ – this will be a common thread throughout festival events which include, film, music, art, literature, drama, dance and fashion.

Whilst ‘art’ is the focus, the attraction of Artfest extends well beyond the arts. Over the years this community based festival has grown and evolved, each event increasing it’s scope and followers. Now, in it’s eleventh year, the festival boasts a massive participation rate and involves more local organisations, people and businesses than any other event. The 10 day festival will likely include over 70 individual events, across well over 40 venues, includes close to 800 participants, many from out of the area. This does not include the delighted audiences at the various exhibitions, performances, readings, films and other art related offerings.

Start planning your stay on the coast, where you can escape the rat race and soak up the energy of this must see event. Visit www.escapeartfest.info for more information.

Please note: If you need somewhere to stay over the Spring school holidays (Oct 5th – Oct 16th) we still have ONE Mollymook holiday home available. With 4 bedrooms, this property can happily accommodate larger families or combined groups. For more details please see HERE.

October school holidays are just around the corner, where are you off to?

Avoid the crowds at Byron Bay and drunken backpackers at Surfers Paradise.

Mollymook is a fantastic, affordable family holiday destination only 2.5 hours drive from Sydney. Pack up the family and a short car trip away you can relax at our fully contained 4 bedroom holiday home, enjoying morning swims and afternoon barbies.

Lockhart Ave can accommodate 8 people so is perfect for larger families or combined groups. Please see HERE for details.

Availability

School Holidays – Oct 5^th – 16^th Oct

We also have availability from the 16^th Jan 2010. (Unfortunately early birds have snapped up the house throughout Christmas.)

If you would like to make a booking please email the office at info@beachandbay.com.au or call on 9527 0008.

If you mention this blog when booking you will receive a 10% discount.

Are you sitting at your desk thinking how you need a holiday right now or are you bedridden with Swine flu and desperate for winter to be over?

Here is your opportunity to beat the winter blues. Beach & Bay Realty is offering a $100 gift voucher at well known Pilgrims Café, Milton for bookings of a week or more at its holiday accommodation properties at the beachside town of Mollymook. All properties are renovated, overlooking the beach or very close to the ocean and are well equipped and perfectly presented beach houses.

This special offer is valid for bookings between now and 31^st December 09. (Please mention this offer when making the booking).

Please email info@beachandbay.com.au or call the office on 02 9527 0008

To view our holiday accommodation properties in Mollymook please see here

Mollymook is located only minutes from historic rural Milton and every June long weekend Milton gets festive with the Milton Scarecrow Festival. This event will begin tomorrow Saturday 6^th June and run on Sunday 7^th June as well. Activities include; arts and craft markets, live entertainment with music & magic shows, animal farm and pony rides, street theatre and the Big Scarecrow competition. The Scarecrow competition is held on Sunday where everybody brings along their scarecrows with the winner earning themselves $350. Locals and tourists really get involved in the event and it’s got something to please everyone!