Detour #251: Don’t Rush the Araluen Road, Australia
Photo Mel Nichols
The Araluen Road was once the busiest road in New South Wales, now you can have it to yourself, says Mel Nichols.
These days, as you wend your way along the Araluen Road, you’re unlikely to encounter another vehicle. If you do, it’ll probably be like-minded souls enjoying the road’s solitude and enchanting views, or locals in pick-ups trucks who value living in seclusion among the hills, or hunkered down on a river flat.
But this snaking yellow and red dirt ribbon from the port town of Moruya, on Australia’s southeast coast, through The Great Dividing Range to the hamlet of Araluen 35 miles northwest, wasn’t always so serene. A century and a half ago it was said to be the busiest road in the burgeoning colony of New South Wales, founded by Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788.
There was a simple reason: gold. After Australia’s biggest alluvial goldfield was struck at Araluen in 1851, thousands of fortune seekers from around the world – and those keen to get rich by supplying them – poured in.
Originally, the route to Araluen was a tricky bridle path, and then a cart track. But as the fossickers trooped in, and the nuggets were lugged back out to ships at Moruya, this vital link teemed with men, women, children, horses and carts. So, between 1856 and 1861 sweating labourers with pickaxes and shovels widened and shaped it into a road.
Miners and merchants weren’t the only chancers drawn to the Araluen valley. Murderous bushrangers – outlaws – the Clarke Brothers and Ben Hall rode in too: they bailed up stagecoaches and provoked shoot-outs, often hours long, with guards and police until Hall was shot in an ambush and the Clarkes were nabbed and hung.
Nowadays, the Araluen Road is a charming drive in a 4WD SUV like our Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Highlander, though it is accessible in two-wheel drive cars and adventurous motorcyclists enjoy its charms too.
It’s a classic Aussie dirt road with a recently graded surface and newly repaired sections that allowed the road to reopen after it was closed by flood-induced landslides in 2022.
As it peels around the hillsides of the Deua National Park and feeds through towering spotted gums and stringy barks, you catch tantalising glimpses of the Deua River below. Occasionally, there’s a ford across a tributary that’s gentle… unless there’s been a prolonged downpour.
Now and then you strike stretches of corrugations rippling the road that will send cars with poor suspension skipping sideways. The Santa Fe, with its Australian-tuned suspension, soaked them up without deviating. Its handling and accurate steering made light work of the bends and precarious sections.
Its gutsy performance, 41mpg economy, equipment, comfort and build quality were equally impressive. Had the day been wet and the road muddy and slippery, its electronically controlled all-terrain system would have kept it sure-footed.
Photo Mel Nichols
At various points, side tracks feed from the Araluen Road down to the river’s grassy banks and swimming holes. Twenty miles up from Moruya, the Baker’s Flat and nearby Deua River campgrounds are delightful places to stop for a picnic and swim in the clear water. But keep an eye peeled for snakes: a red bellied black snake was sunning itself just upstream from where we paddled at the Deua River site.
On again, and as you near Araluen, 37 miles up from Moruya, the trees thin to lush pasture dotted now with black Angus and Herefords.
At the peak of the gold boom in the 1860s and ’70s, Araluen boasted 15,000 people, 28 pubs and five police stations. Now there are just a couple of hundred residents and the lone Araluen Hotel. Nip in beneath its shady veranda for a cold, cold drink.
Continuing north, the dirt surface gives way to winding tarmac that lifts you out of the Araluen valley and slips across the high plains to the now-chic pioneer town of Braidwood. From there, if you wish, you could take the King’s Highway the 40 miles back down to the coast at Batemans Bay. But if, like me, you’re not ready to leave the draw of the bush and that enticing yellow dirt trail, you’ll head back along the Araluen Road and think of the settlers and miners whose lives it transformed 160 years ago, and enjoy its peaceful vistas and scent of the bush once more.