Rachel Healy: Robe was never on our radar, but it has been a great discovery

Robe’s Long Beach is a something else – but visitors are aghast at the 4WDs turning it into an expressway, writes Adelaide Festival co-director Rachel Healy

I was never someone who spent my school holidays in Robe.

Growing up, our gang exploited my best friend’s family beach house in Victor Harbor for short breaks and long parties.

Popular as I knew it to be, “Burnside-On-Sea”, as it was pejoratively nicknamed, was a whopping four hours from Adelaide and consequently never on my radar as a place to discover.

It took a pandemic, some recently locked-down Melbourne mates desperate for a beach getaway and teenagers of my own who craved sun, sand and teen company to show me what I’ve been missing out on for so may years. Robe is properly fabulous.

Rachel Healy discovers the Big Lobster at Kingston South East, on holiday with her family at Robe. Picture: Supplied by Rachel Healy

Much smaller and less sprawling than Victor, Robe retains a historical character and a village feel that makes for an ideal city-life getaway.

While I love the proximity of the Barossa and McLaren Vale, Robe’s distance from Adelaide is also something to treasure – four hours is long enough to feel like a real road trip, complete with country town bakery lunches and opportunities to be photographed with gigantic crustaceans.

There are lots of local secrets that gradually reveal themselves. There’s Ernst, the incredible artisan baker who runs Rise of Robe, which has vast queues of regulars snaking along the main street every morning from 7.30am.

Every last delicious just-baked sourdough loaf, croissant or legendary portuguese tart is snapped up in an hour or two and then Ernst can call it quits for the day, just as the other boutiques and cafes are opening.

I like to think Ernst then goes to the beach; alternating, as did we, dips in the ocean with trips to the stone’s throw gelati van until the sun goes down.

The town beach is cosy and family-friendly, but the real glory of Robe is Long Beach.

The water there has mellowed on its journey from Antarctica but will still be somewhere between brisk and refreshing, even on the hottest day. It may provoke the odd squeal at first but once you’re a part of it, its clarity is breathtaking in a less literal sense.

Look north towards the Coorong and there stretches a vast turquoise and crystal necklace; look west and there’s only waves between you and Argentina.

It’s not often that mucking around with your friends and kids manages to also be a humbling experience but finding yourself at one with all this vastness makes it so.

No wonder this is on the shortlist of the planet’s most beautiful beaches. Alas, in peak season much of the beach’s 12km is a gigantic expressway/carpark for four-wheel-drives. It is a uniquely South Australian travesty that huge carbon emitting leisure machines are legally invited to trash this glorious place for the convenience of their owners.

Interstate and international visitors alike are aghast.

It would involve a big culture shift, as vehicular access to the beach is promoted as an attraction, but could there not be a business opening for electric mountain bike hire? Fishing rods and picnic hampers could still be carried on a bike.

The cliff walk, with its romantic craggy vistas and coves visited by the occasional bob of seals, is a must. The curious barber-pole-striped icon grandly dubbed the Robe Obelisk is, sadly, now fenced off. The paint job’s looking a bit shabby but the council was recently shocked by a scaffolding quote for $58,000. Winds and extreme proximity to crumbling 40m cliffs and the threat of being dashed to pieces or drowned makes it far from a routine council maintenance job. The sea will eventually swallow it but Robe has outgrown the need for a warning beacon anyway. Don’t shy away from this gem of a place.