a local's honest answer
Where to stay in Merimbula
Merimbula has five distinct places to sleep, and the right one comes down to a single question: do you want to walk to dinner, or wake up on the sand? Here is what each part of town is actually like — including the parts where somewhere other than us will suit you better.
Top Lake, at the quiet inland end of Merimbula Lake — the town climbs the ridge behind it.
First, the shape of the town
Merimbula is built around a lake mouth. The shops sit up on the ridge along Main Street and Market Street; the lake lies below them to the west, wide and shallow and full of oyster leases; and Main Beach runs north from the bar mouth for about five kilometres of open sand. Everything else — the boardwalk, the wharf, the beaches — hangs off those three things.
It is a small town. About 3,800 people live here year-round, roughly 18,000 within ten kilometres, and in January that figure stops meaning anything at all. The whole place is walkable in the sense that a fit person could cross it in half an hour — but the ridge is genuinely steep, and that hill is the reason the choice of where you sleep matters more here than the size of the town suggests.
Merimbula sits just off the Princes Highway, so nothing here is on a truck route. The Visitor Information Centre at 29 Market Street is worth ten minutes on your first morning; the staff know which beaches have had swell.
Getting here
- Sydney
- 448 km south via the Princes Highway
- Canberra
- 243 km east, over the Brown Mountain
- Melbourne
- 588 km along the coast road
- Merimbula Airport
- About 3 km from the town centre, with daily Rex and QantasLink flights to Sydney and Melbourne
- Nearest towns
- Pambula Beach 9 km south · Eden 27 km south · Bega 32 km north-west
The five places people stay
In rough order of how close they are to being able to leave the car alone for your whole stay.
The town centre and Merimbula Drive
Best for: two to four nights, no car once you arrive
Main Street and Market Street carry the shops, the bakery, the supermarkets, the cinema and most of the places you would eat. The motels sit along and just off Merimbula Drive, the road that brings you in from the highway. You give up an absolute waterfront position, and you get two things back that matter more than they sound on paper: the car parks a few steps from your door, and you can walk to dinner and walk home again afterwards without anyone drawing straws.
Most rooms here are motel rooms rather than self-contained apartments, so this end of town suits a few nights better than a fortnight with a full kitchen.
Fishpen
Best for: a week with small children, self-catering
The low peninsula between Merimbula Lake and Main Beach, almost entirely holiday apartments and units. Water on both sides: flat, shallow lake on one for children who aren't ready for surf, open beach on the other for the ones who are. For a family stay of a week or more it is the best address in town, and we will happily say so.
The trade-off is that Fishpen is residential. There is very little to walk to after dark, so dinner is either cooked in the unit or a walk back up the hill. If you want it over Christmas or January, book it around October.
Short Point and the north end
Best for: surfers, and anyone who wants it quiet
Cabins and units sit above the rockpools at Short Point, about two kilometres north of the town centre. Short Point and Main Beach are the two best breaks in Merimbula, and the rockpools at the point are the sort of thing children disappear into for an hour at low tide. It is noticeably quieter up here than in the middle of town — the cost is that you will drive for dinner most nights.
Tura Beach, about 6 km north
Best for: golf, longer stays, more space
A separate residential town with its own golf course, a shopping centre and a long, generally empty beach. Newer, roomier and calmer than Merimbula proper, with less of the old-coast-town character. Sensible for a week if you don't mind the ten-minute drive back into Merimbula for anything you want to do in the evening.
Pambula Beach, about 9 km south
Best for: caravans, camping, kids and kangaroos
Built around a large holiday park behind the dunes with national park at its back, which is why the kangaroos grazing on the grass at dawn are a genuine feature rather than a brochure line. It is a place to stay rather than a town to wander — Pambula village itself is a couple of kilometres inland. At low tide you can walk the beach most of the way back to Merimbula, which is about five kilometres and one of the better mornings on this coast.
Further afield, Eden is 27 kilometres south — a working fishing port with the best whale watching on the coast in spring, and often cheaper beds. Worth a day. Less worth it as a base, because you will spend an hour a day driving back and forth.
Where we'd send you if not to us
If you need a full kitchen and a laundry for a two-week family holiday, an apartment on Fishpen will serve you better than a motel room, and we would rather tell you that now than have you find out on day three. If your plan is to surf every morning before anyone else is up, stay at Short Point.
What we are genuinely good at is the middle of town for a few nights: everything on foot, the car left exactly where you parked it, and someone at reception who knows which beach is worth the walk today.
Where we sit in all of that
We're at 36 Merimbula Drive — on the town side of the road, near the top of the ridge, with the shops one short walk downhill and the lake the other way. Single storey, every room on the ground floor, and free parking a few steps from the door.
- Town centre shops and cafés
- 400 m · 5 min walk
- Merimbula Lake boardwalk
- About 1 min
- Merimbula Main Beach
- About 15 min walk
- Merimbula Airport
- About 3 km
- Parking
- Free, on site, at the door
Dogs are welcome — see pet friendly stays. For what there is to actually do once you've dropped the bags, we keep a longer list on things to do in Merimbula.
And when to come
December to January
The busy one. Beaches full, everything open, and accommodation across the whole town books out months ahead. If you want a particular room in January, book it before the spring school holidays.
September to November
Humpbacks pass close to this stretch of coast on the way south, often with calves, and the water is warming without the crowds. Our own favourite time of year here, and still easy to get a room.
May to August
Quiet, clear and cold in the mornings — the town belongs to the locals again. Best value of the year, the oysters are at their best, and you'll have the boardwalk to yourself.
the middle of it all
Decided on the town centre? We're right in it
Four room types, free parking at the door, and the shops, the lake and the boardwalk all on foot. Best available rate when you book direct — or call and we'll talk you through which room suits your trip.