SEA CHANGE

On a road trip down the Sapphire Coast in NSW, MAGGIE SCARDIFIELD checks in on a wave of savvy bakers, distillers, brewers and restaurateurs to get a taste of the region.

I’ve been making G&Ts wrong this whole time. This realisation comes while sitting on the deck at Stony Creek Farm, five-and-a-half-hours drive south of Sydney. It’s here that distiller Gavin Hughes and his partner Karen Touchie make their small-batch North of Eden gins from a farm shed turned distillery. “If you fill the glass with tonic, all you’re going to taste is tonic,” says Hughes. “We do just 60ml tonic, 30 of gin.” It’s a revelation. And something I never would’ve expected to discover in country New South Wales.

The pristine Sapphire Coast in NSW stretches roughly from Moruya to Eden, with a swag of heritage, hinterland and beachside towns in between including Central Tilba, Bermagui, Tathra, Bega and Pambula. It’s known as Australia’s premier oyster growing region, but thanks to a host of savvy bakers, distillers, brewers, restaurateurs and small-scale farmers, there’s a lot more than oysters to savour.

I start my week-long food safari at the community Sage Farmers’ Markets in Moruya. Every Tuesday afternoon many of the Eurobodalla and Bega Valley Shire’s most dedicated growers congregate on the riverbank to sell their produce. Floppy-hat-wearing locals gather in front of their favourite stalls in anticipation of the 3pm brass bell; nothing can be sold before it rings. I eye a table laid with handfuls of tender garlic scapes, and wonder what to do with them. I’m swiftly handed a bunch.“Try them out, fall in love and I’ll see you next week,” says the grower. Another producer tosses me an orange with a wink. Later in my fully equipped tiny house at Tilba Lake Camp, I squeeze the citrus over the scapes with a slug of local olive oil, and toss them through broad beans from Turlinjah, and the sweetest florets of broccolini grown nearby in Tuross Head.