Berry is one of our favourite Sydney weekend getaways. The town itself is utterly charming with quaint old buildings and is small enough to easily get around on foot. The cafe scene is fantastic and it even has a traditional English tea room!
Just beyond the town is one of our favourite viewpoints in NSW, several gorgeous beaches and an award winning winery. There’s plenty to keep you busy, no matter what you’re looking for.
So here’s our pick of the best things to do in Berry for a memorable weekend away.
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1: Drawing Room Rocks
2: Seven Mile Beach
3: Berry Tea Shop
4: Bundewallah Waterfall
5: The Two Figs Winery
6: The Berry Historical Walk
7: Have a picnic in Apex Park
8: Go craft shopping
9: The Sand Track
10: Sunrise at Shoalhaven Heads
11: Sunset at Black Head
12: Visit the famous Donut Van
13: Snag a bargain at the markets
14: Go back in time in Kangaroo Valley
The 14 Best Things to do in Berry
Berry is a beautiful, rural village which most people see as a destination in itself. However, it is also the centre of some incredible experiences that are less then 30 minutes away. If you’re like us, then the perfect weekend is a blend of good food, a little adventure and great views.
Hopefully these 14 fit that bill!
1. Check out Berry’s best view at Drawing Room Rocks
We’re going to start with one of our favourite things to do in Berry - the short walk up to the magnificent view point at Drawing Room Rocks.
The 3km walk is pretty steep, but it’s worth every step as you head up to a jaw dropping view of the ocean, rolling green farmland and picturesque mountains.
The rock formations make it a great picnic spot, but it’s also an amazing place to come to watch the sunset.
The walk to the top is on an obvious beaten down trail, but it is rough in places, so you’ll definitely want good shoes. We outline the entire trail in detail in this post.
2. Hit the beach
Yes there are beaches very close to Berry! Our top recommend would be to head to Seven Mile Beach, which is just a ten minute drive from the town centre.
Seven mile beach - and yes it is genuinely seven miles long - is a gorgeous sweep of golden sand backed by dense vegetation, which is the perfect place to sit and relax, or swim in the gentle waves.
It’s size means that it never feels busy and it’s really easy to find your own private spot. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon after overindulging in Berry’s fab food scene.
3. Have afternoon tea English style
We tried the Berry Tea Shop on our very first visit to Berry and we’ve gone on every subsequent visit too! It’s an institution, and the only place we’ve been to in Australia which genuinely feels like it could be in our home country!
There is an extensive tea menu and it’s all served on pretty china cups and saucers, but in honesty we come for the cakes!
The flavours change most times we visit, and we’ve never tasted one we didn’t like. Our favourites are pear and chocolate, lemon, and raspberry and white chocolate. Or you could make it a cream tea with homemade scones!
A trip to the Berry Tea Room is never good for the waistline, but it is too delicious to pass up!
4. Find the secret waterfall
The Bundewallah Waterfall is tucked away in a little visited reserve just outside of Berry. It’s a beautiful series of cascades that flow through a pretty patch of rainforest. A giant strangler fig stands as sentinel over the lower falls and it feels more like a scene from Tropical North Queensland than it does the South Coast!
The 2.3km (return) walk to reach the majority of the cascades is on a decent track, however, the most impressive part of the falls is off track and requires a slippery scramble to reach.
The easier access part of the falls and rainforest are gorgeous, so you don’t have to be up for the scramble to make a visit here worthwhile.
All the details on how to find the waterfall are here.
5. Grab a bottle and a cheese platter at the Two Figs Winery
The Two Figs Winery is an award winning vineyard, perched on a hill with truly breathtaking views. This is a quintessential rural NSW vista, with pretty lakes and farmland.
You can opt for a wine tasting, which is what we did, or buy a bottle and a cheese platter and sit on one of the many picnic tables overlooking that beautiful view.
If you go for the wine tasting, you’ll try eight different kinds; four white, three red and one dessert wine. Leave a bit of time for this because it’s a pretty leisurely affair and took just over 45 minutes to complete the tasting. The cost is $5 per person.
We enjoyed all the wines, particularly the reds, and would definitely return for a bottle and a cheese platter when we next visit.
The only negative I have to say is that unlike many other wine regions we’ve visited in Australia you don’t get the tasting fee refunded on purchase of a bottle. However, that’s been the case with all the wineries we’ve visited in the South Coast / Southern Highlands area. Having said, that we’ve also never had such a long tasting, so it didn’t feel bad value.
6. Take a stroll along the Berry Historical Walk
This time when we visited Berry we decided we wanted to get to know the history a little more, so we decided to embark on the Berry Historical Walk.
There are maps online but in all honesty we couldn’t make head nor tail of the official route so we decided to create our own.
If you find yourself with the same issue, we’d highly recommend starting on Queen Street as this is where you will see the majority of old buildings.
You can wander along and look up the buildings you pass on google to get a short description of their history, and bingo you’ve made your own historical walk!
Our favourites were the old courthouse, the post office, the Berry Hotel and the Berry Museum. The courthouse is a five minute walk from Queen Street and labelled on Google Maps.
7. Have a picnic at Apex Park
Apex Park is a small, but sweet patch of greenery right in the town centre and offers a peaceful place to come for a picnic.
If you don’t want to make your own we can recommend heading to the Milkwood Bakery and trying some of their offerings, which is what we chose to do. I mean when in the ‘Southern Pielands’……
On that note it was nice to go somewhere where curried vegetable was not the only veggie pie offering! : )
8. Go craft shopping
Berry is full of really lovely craft shops with lots of unique offerings.
It’s the kind of place that’s perfect for gift shopping, with galleries and other independent shops with everything from homeware to art supplies, ceramics, antiques and fresh produce.
It always makes us happy to see a town full of independent stores, rather than chains, and pottering around the shops is a pleasant way to spend a few hours.
9. Work off some of that cake on the Sand Track Loop Walk
Just over a ten minute drive from Berry at the Seven Mile Beach National Park you’ll find the Sand Track Loop. This easy, flat, 4km stroll is the perfect way to start or finish your day - when you arrive you’ll see the sign says it’s 3km but we measured it and it’s definitely 4!
We headed there first thing in the morning and walked through the forest for 2km which was alive with bird song (well, bird sounds anyway, Aussie birds are not known for being particularly tuneful!).
The second half of the walk is along the glorious Seven Mile Beach. It’s not soft sand, it’s hard and compact which makes it perfect for walking on. The whole trail was an absolute delight.
10. Catch a sunrise at Shoalhaven Heads
If you’re a keen photographer or just love to catch a sunrise our favourite place to head is Shoalhaven Heads.
It’s just under a 15 minute drive, and it’s really scenic - which you’ll notice on the way back! As you can see from the photos we had a really foggy morning, it’s the first time we’ve ever seen a foggy beach sunrise and it was incredibly atmospheric.
It felt like we were out in the wilds somewhere and though we didn’t have the clear sunrise we had originally hoped for, it was definitely more unique.
On the drive back to Berry you’ll notice all the gorgeous farmland which looks especially pretty in the early morning light.
Foggy mornings near Shoalhaven Heads
11. Or a sunset at Black Head
If early starts are not your thing, then there is a really fabulous sunset spot just a 15 minute drive from the centre of Berry at Black Head Reserve.
The sun sets over the headland and casts a beautiful light over the ocean. It’s just a few minutes walk to get to a huge green space which has benches, or bring a picnic blanket and relax on the grass.
You can also walk down on to the rocks below the grassy verge and check out the reflections in the rock pools.
It’s very much a local spots and though it was very quiet the few people that did pass us were really friendly, so the whole place had a lovely vibe.
12. Sample the delights at the famous Donut Van
We so rarely include food in our blog posts, but when it comes to Berry food is a really big deal, and there are so many different things worth trying.
The Donut Van is always busy, if there’s not a queue you are very lucky!
The cinnamon donuts are served warm and you can either have them au naturel or cut in half with ice cream in the middle.
The smell is enough to make it hard to resist stopping by.
13. Visit the market
There are two markets in Berry, but they aren’t weekly, so if you’re keen you’d have to time your visit to coincide.
The Berry Markets - which is the one we went to - sells everything from arts and crafts to house plants, to candles and antiques. It operates on the first Sunday of every month.
The Berry Produce Market is held every second Saturday and forth Sunday.
The Berry Market was a lovely place to wander around but bring cash! Almost no one accepts card, so make sure you visit an ATM before you visit.
14. Step back in time at nearby Kangaroo Valley
If you have a longer stay in Berry and want to venture a little further afield, Kangaroo Valley is a 25 minute drive away. It’s another lovely little town with interesting old buildings and lots more eateries!
There’s lots to do from kayaking on the river, to taking a dip under the Hampden Bridge to going for a hike. Kangaroo Valley is the kind of place that deserves a weekend in its own right but if you’re short on time you can definitely add it on to your Berry adventure.
We have a full guide on all the best things to do in Kangaroo Valley here.
Getting to Berry
Berry is located on the South Coast, 140km and roughly a two hour drive from Sydney. There is plenty of free parking in the town centre but on a busy weekend you might need to drive around a bit or go to a side street to find it.
Getting to Berry by train or bus is a pain and requires multiple changes, it’s the kind of place you really do want to have a car with you if possible.
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Have you been to Berry before? What’s your favourite thing to do there? Let us know in the comments below!
