Unlike the infamous backpacker trail from Sydney north to Cairns, the south coast of New South Wales is chock full of beaches that are equally stellar and altogether far less crowded.

It’s a well-kept secret that’s becoming less so, with Sydneysiders in recent years deciding they can no longer afford to migrate north for their hols so instead go south (not without effectively driving up the prices here for locals).

But anyway. It makes for better cafes.

Jervis Bay, as dad never tires of reminding us, is the place where Sydney was supposed to be. Captain Cook’s instructions on that fateful night in 1770 were to moor at the next liveable harbour, which, at 15 k’s long and the deepest sheltered harbour on the continent, Jervis Bay could certainly have had a stab at.

But old Cooky wasn’t well rested and perhaps had been on the sauce a bit, so in the dark went and sailed right by, and didn’t anchor till Botany Bay, in Sydney.

Still, in the early 19^th century Jervis Bay rivaled Sydney Harbour as major port. After its initial rip-off of being bypassed, though, it then copped a long history of stuff being nicked from it.

Whalers, for one, used to knock off the whales that are now so fervently sought by sightseers. And wool from local sheep was carted off to Sydney, and tree trunks nicked by city folk for their ships. Even today nearly 8,000 hectares of it belongs to the Australian Capital Territory for its federal sea access and a place for snipers-in-training to shoot up.