Oberon-Goulburn Road – MR256

For the slightly more adventurous road-trippers, the route from Oberon (30 kays east of Jenolan Caves) to Goulburn in the south is cracking cross-country blast along what’s become adventurously known as the, erm, Oberon-Goulburn Road.It’s 140 kays in length so be warned: tacking on this third route onto the back of Bells Line Of Road and Oberon Way effectively doubles the total trip length exiting Sydney. A return trip in one day can be ambitious unless you really get your skates on…It’s a reasonably obscure, backwater path – it was only completely sealed as recently as 2008 – if the only logical one you can take running north-south across the backside of the Great Dividing Range. Officially, the run south out of Oberon is called Abercrombie Road for 70 kilometres until it crosses the Abercrombie River, after which it becomes Taralga Road – passing through Taralga, of course – for the remaining 74-kay run into Goulburn.What’s to like? Quiet, lightly trafficked and flanked by forest, rolling hills and farms, it’s a great route to stretch your car’s grand touring legs while bombing across its long flowing curves where passengers won’t become threatened with car sickness.That is, until you hit the area where the road snakes sharply in the drop down to Abercrombie River – and its dinky little bridge – before climbing up out of the gorge again. This area is home to the Bummeroo Ford campground, the local hot-spot for off-roading, swimming, fishing and hiking.Once in Goulburn, it’s a 200-kay return trip up the Hume Highway to Sydney, or you can park up, enjoying everything from a giant merino sheep to the Wakefield Parkway race circuit, or continue down a number of tourist routes: south on Braidwood Road to Tarago and on toward Canberra in the south-west, or head south-east along the excellent Kings Highway towards Batemans Bay on the New South Wales’ southern coastline.