Recently, Emily from Our Family Gap Year,  her husband and two children, returned home from their year travelling around Australia in their caravan, Harvey.  Their last stop was Jugiong - just an hour out of Canberra   

With less than one week to go on our family gap year, we decided to camp at the tiny town of Jugiong, just one hour from the outskirts of Canberra and only two hours from our home. We chose Jugiong for the donation camp by the river, and stayed for the amazing town and all it had to offer.

For a small country town, Jugiong sure packs a punch. There’s The Sir George — a beautifully restored hotel with an in-house bakery and luxury accommodation. The gardens are lush  with plenty of shade, as well as a fantastic kitchen garden and green grass for the kiddies to run around on — although with two friendly goats to pat, a sandpit and a cubby house, they might not even need the grass. 

We popped in for coffee and a brownie one morning (which was oh so delicious), and then came back for dinner to celebrate my birthday. The food was fresh, modern and extremely tasty, and the drinks were cold. We were even able to enjoy some almost kid-free time as we relaxed by the windows while the kiddies played outside. I cannot wait to go back, kid-free, and stay in the luxury barns for a night or two.

Right next door to The Sir George is The Long Track Pantry – a beautiful café and homewares/gift store. The food sounds delicious (we didn’t have time to eat there), the coffee is on point, and you can easily lose yourself browsing through the beautiful homewares, clothing and gifts. I could have easily bought half the store if we weren’t living in a caravan, including the preserves and chutneys they make in-house.

Next door to the Pantry is Lickety Splits, a little gelato store with so many flavours to choose from, and then there’s the Jugiong Wine Cellar – a boutique cellar with carefully selected wines from 28 wineries in the local wine regions (think Gundagai, Tumbarumba, Hilltops, Young and Murrumbateman).

Around the other side of the hotel is 4 Doors Up – a lovely little retail precinct with the Curators Collective,  Woodstock Resources and more. There’s plenty to browse through or even pick up some beautiful pieces for your home.

And of course, being a small country town, there’s also a great little playground and a low-cost swimming pool to cool off on those hot, hot summer days. We spent a few relaxing afternoons swimming and sitting in the shade while the kiddies splashed around in the kiddies pool.

But what amazed me the most about this beautiful little town, is that it’s less than an hour and a half from the Canberra city – that’s an easy day trip or weekend getaway. We’ll be back for sure.

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So much more to explore - Canberra region