Exploring the NSW Southern Highlands in the Mazda CX-90

Mission irresistible: to drive Mazda’s flagship SUV, the CX-90 Azami, across the NSW Southern Highlands for a wintertime trip to some of my favourite destinations along a route from Robertson to Bundanoon – two of the Highlands’ smaller and lesser-known spots.

There’s a constellation of towns within easy driving distance of each other here, set in rural and bushland countryside that’s scenic and often downright magnificent. And when the Highlands are within two hours’ drive from Sydney or Canberra, it’s not surprising that they’re renowned for day trips and stays.

The route will give this exhilarating three-row SUV room to run across a fair breadth of the Highlands. The 2023-released CX-90 features Mazda’s most powerful production petrol engine to date (a turbo 3.3L inline six-cylinder producing 254kW) and 48V mild hybrid technology. It translates to superb power and breathtaking acceleration on the road.

 

 

On the road over recent days, I’ve also come to trust and admire how well the brand’s biggest-ever SUV handles. Even at around 2.8 tonnes and just over 5 metres in length, the steering is highly responsive and it’s a thrilling car to thread through the country.

So, do I feel a sense of Jinba-Ittai starting up? Oh, yes. 

Jinba-Ittai is a Japanese phrase traditionally used for the connection felt by a horse and rider that’s become part of Mazda’s philosophy – they aim to create cars that inspire such a sense of ‘oneness’.

Perhaps the surest sign of it is feeling awkward on behalf of my own car – a much-loved 2022 Mazda2 which has vacated our garage for the red guest – when I describe to others the phenomenal leap-up in performance, comfort and luxury in look and feel that a CX-90 represents.

The Takumi interior is exquisite, including white maple wood panels and a white textile dash with kakenui stitching. This hanging-stitch technique gives a subtle spacing between the fabrics being secured together, reminiscent of the ties on ancient Japanese harnesses and armour.  

 

 

I drive into Robertson, a small town earning a big reputation for food and art. It’s morning after a long journey – food first …

Robertson is long famous for potatoes and cheese. Outstanding present-day cheesemakers are why I park on Hoddle St outside Pecora Food and Wine, awaiting its opening time and aware of the crisp air outside. The wintertime allure of the heating in the CX-90’s heated Nappa leather seats and leather steering wheel shouldn’t be underestimated, especially when the heating level of each seat can be set to the occupant’s ideal level of cosiness.

 

 

Jennings Kerr, with paintings by Harry Martin

 

I then visit nearby art galleries, starting next door with the not-for-profit Southern Highlands Artisan’s Collective, SHAC. Directly across Hoddle St is The Highlands Hive, whose places for art include the ‘classic’ white room commercial gallery space of Jennings Kerr. James Kerr represents early and mid-career artists from the Highlands and elsewhere, including some based overseas.

Others inside the Hive include Spud Lane Gallery, which doubles as the studio of Ric Abel and Cat Doyle and a gallery showing the work of themselves and other artists. It’s a colourful, eclectic, retro-style space that feels both very ‘cool’ and very comfortable.

 

Ric Abel at Work. Painting by Keith Looby on the right

 

Further along Hoddle St is The Old Robertson Cheese Factory building. One business inside is Mumma’s Country Kitchen, a café and deli where I don’t resist a delicious canelé and second coffee. The owner, Helen Vlahakis and her friend, Paul Martino make the cooked food, with Greek, Italian and French dishes being specialities. Cuts of beef are available too, sourced from Helen’s farm of Black Angus cattle

Mumma’s is also remarkable for its careful selection of internationally sourced gourmet cooking ingredients and homewares. The striking Pendleton pure wool blankets, including picnic blankets, are natural attention-grabbers. But the warmly gleaming Mauviel 1830 and Ruffoni copper cookware and PKS Bronze copper garden tools are what really catch my eye.

 

 

On the outskirts of Bowral, is the National Trust (NSW) property of Retford Park, a Victorian-period Italianate-style mansion in established gardens. It was built in 1887 by the Hordern family, best known for Sydney’s historic Anthony Hordern & Sons department stores.

 

 

In 1964, it was purchased by James Fairfax, then a director, and later chairman, of the John Fairfax Ltd. media company. James lavishly redesigned the house and gardens, working with others including the renowned interior designer, Leslie Walford. The famed modernist architect, Guildford Bell, designed the 1969 ‘Fairfax pavilion’, set between a swimming pool and pond.

A year before he died in 2017, James gifted the mansion and gardens with funds to the National Trust (NSW) along with furniture, art and other inclusions, some of which were unusual – his dogs and birds, including emus. They all got to live their lives out on site. 

 

 

James was a renowned dog-lover. His first was a Chihuahua and he later favoured the distinctly up-scale Rhodesian Ridgeback. His dogs’ ashes are in the ‘dog cemetery’ in the garden, each with a headstone. Touchingly, James’s own are there amongst them.

There’s certainly room for a small pack of dogs across the CX-90’s two tiers of back seats. If you can tempt them out – yes, there’s more heating in the second row – and into the great winter outdoors, they’re welcome on leash to ramble and picnic in the gardens with you. In winter, the blooms include daphne, snowdrops, witch hazel, Bergenia and honeysuckle.

 

Retford Park’s reception room with the rare seventeenth century ‘Mortlake’ tapestry.

 

House entry is by guided tour only. It’s your chance to see and hear about the collection of fine art, textiles and 16th–18th Century furniture inside, for a fascinating glimpse into James’s life, tastes, and social network which included Donald Friend. Several works inside are painted by Friend, including extraordinary murals created in the 1960s for James’s dining room that are wickedly funny in places. Notwithstanding James’s generous gifts of art to several Australian galleries, the significant art (by Australian surrealist James Gleeson to name just one more artist) and all else that remains at Retford Park is something to see.

Ngununggula is the regional gallery of the Southern Highlands, in the skilfully renovated former dairy of Retford Park. It opened in 2021, with a name that means 'belonging' in the language of the Gundungurra First Nations people of this area. It presents a changing schedule of contemporary art and other programming. There’s also a shop and, right next door, the Hearth by Moonacres café in Retford Park’s renovated Veterinary Clinic.

 

 

The Highlands is a premium cool climate wine-growing area and plenty of its wineries have cellar doors. It’s highly appropriate to visit some in an Artisan Red Metallic Mazda – talking about Mazda’s reds with Keiji Okamoto, Senior Creative Expert of the Design Division last year, he described their design concept for this 2022-debuted paint: ‘the highest quality of mature red wine, produced by the best craftsmanship’.

Bendooley Estate is close to Berrima and around 15 minutes’ drive from Retford Park. Their award-winning winemaker is Jonathan Holgate and their stylish wine-tasting room beside grape vines is tempting. But today, I’m most drawn to Bendooley’s brilliant pairing of wine and books.

 

 

In The Book Barn, shelves and shelves of new and second-hand books are there to browse under a soaring marvel of a wooden ceiling. Also, a trove of rare books is nearby, in a separate building that is visitable by appointment. Bendooley is the home base of the multi-store Berkelouw Books enterprise, now run by the sixth successive generation of Berkelouw family booksellers. They have quite a bookselling history, that stretches back to Rotterdam in 1812 and moves to Australia, first Sydney, in 1948.

I lunch by the fire in the restaurant inside the barn, surrounded by bookshelves. I can’t help sizing up the CX-90’s roomy boot capacity: 257 litres floor-to-ceiling and 608 litres with the third tier of seats down, equates to bounteous stacks of books and wine. I boggle at what could fit into 2025 litres with the second tier of seats down and, post-lunch, select a sensible-size bounty before hitting the road for Berrima.

 

 

I’m heading for ‘liquid gold’. This age-old moniker for olive oil seems more suited than ever, as European olive oil producers meet major production challenges. When Australian olive oils are more in the spotlight, it’s worth knowing that Peppergreen Estate’s award-winning olive oil can be tasted at their Berrima site, with their wines and olive-infused gin. Their wines have gained international acclaim too, with wins that include two golds in the 2024 Sakura Japan Women’s Wine Awards.

Mazda’s KODO design philosophy is apparent in the CX-90 – there is something of the looks of a powerful, dynamic beast in its shape and, when parked, it seems ready-set-to-go-go-go. It’s easy to imagine it as a living beast and, returning to it outside Peppergreen with ‘gold’ in hand, it was time for it to have another good stretch of its legs.

After The Great Southern Railway from Sydney reached the area in 1868, tourists started to arrive. They came for the mountain air, to walk in marvellous natural scenery, and to enjoy a town increasingly set up for visitors. Its tourism peaked in the early twentieth century and then started to slow mid-century – as car holidays became more popular, destinations away from railway lines gained more of the overall tourist market.

 

 

I’m headed for Osborn House, built in 1892 as the home of George and Dinah Osborn. They opened it to guests from the early 1900s until 1925. Now, it’s a 5-star boutique-size luxury hotel that opens its day spa, bar and restaurants to the wider public.

It’s a stroll from the main street of Bundanoon and borders the Park – magnificent high-outlook views over the Park, sweeping in breadth, are gained from several places on-site, including the dining spaces.

 

Right: Inside Dinah’s. Painting by Jai Vasicek

 

The CX-90 and I can’t resist a brief overshoot of the navigation for Osborn House, to find birdsong and wattle bloom along the sealed roads leading into the Park. But by late afternoon, I’m in George’s – Osborn House’s afternoon bar and restaurant for dinner. I settle inside by the fireplace with a perfect margarita. Nearby is Dinah’s – the smaller and more formal space for evening dining.

The spaces feel richly stylish and utterly relaxing and they’re full of art. The interiors in the house and separate new-build forest lodges are styled by the multi-award-winning designer Linda Boronkay, formerly the Design Director at Soho House, London.

I’m far from alone in thinking that an overnight stay to experience more of it (Tennis, anyone? Heated pool? And more…) is an attractive prospect. When new in 2022, Osborn House made the select global 2023 lists for new destinations by two of the world’s most renowned travel publications – the Travel + Leisure It List’ and Condé Nast Traveler Hot List.

Staying overnight in Bundanoon also allows more time to explore the Park’s walking trails. Options of various lengths and grades start nearby, including some classed as easy and short.

 

 

If you seek second-chance warmth after fleeting past the alpaca fibre and regretting it, or something else entirely, maybe it’s in The Good Yarn (proceeds to charity) whose wares include hand-knitting by Bundanoon locals, or in Bundanoon Botanicals which features the body-care products and scented candles that it produces, alongside other items including clothing.

Time your visit right and you could be amid the bagpipes and caber throwing of Bundanoon’s annual grand-scale Scottish Highland Gathering, Brigadoon. Or enjoy other events that run more frequently, including music, movies and makers’ markets.

As the sun sets, I consider there’s still so much unseen in the Highlands today, including antique shops in Robertson, Bowral and elsewhere. It’s all an incentive for many more trips in my still much-loved Mazda2.

And I muse that driving this CX-90 has been an eye-opener to Mazda’s top-end range and a treat – I’ll miss it. Meanwhile, reclaiming its garage, I don’t imagine my Mazda2 will though, not one bit.