Why it's worth going past Kiama
Berry sits a little further south along the same coastal region as Kiama, and offers a genuinely different pace — a small, well-preserved 19th-century dairy town with a strong antique shopping and café scene, set among rolling green countryside rather than the more dramatic coastal cliffs closer to Wollongong.
🚗 Practical planning
Berry is reachable by train, but a car opens up considerably more of the surrounding region — including quieter beaches at Seven Mile Beach and Gerroa — in a single day than the train alone allows. Worth weighing up depending on how much of the wider area you want to cover.
What to actually do
- Browse Berry's main street, a genuinely well-preserved historic strip of antique shops, bookstores, and cafés, popular with Sydney day-trippers looking for a slower pace.
- Visit Seven Mile Beach, a long, largely undeveloped stretch of coastline near Gerroa, genuinely quieter than almost anywhere covered elsewhere on this site.
- Sample local dairy and produce, reflecting the region's genuine agricultural heritage — several local producers sell direct near the town.
- Combine with Kiama for a fuller South Coast day if you have a car and want to cover both in one trip, though this makes for a long day if attempted from Sydney and back.
How it compares to the Southern Highlands
Where the Southern Highlands lean cooler-climate and slightly more polished, Berry and the surrounding South Coast lean more toward genuine countryside-meets-coast, with a lower-key, less curated feel — a good choice if a quieter, less touristed version of a country day trip appeals.
Getting there
Trains run from Central Station to Berry via Bomaderry, taking around two and a half hours — on the longer end for a day trip by public transport, making an early start genuinely worthwhile if attempting this without a car.
