Bathurst travel guide: Where to stay, eat and explore with your dog

Bathurst is best known for Mount Panorama and the Bathurst 1000, but the regional NSW city also offers excellent accommodation, historic attractions, great food and a growing collection of dog-friendly experiences. Come along with Dorian as he experiences all the city has to offer. 

When I was at school, you were one of two things: Ford or Holden. It was like being Catholic or Protestant — and like religion, it was determined entirely by what your father drove. Dad always had Fords. Righteous, dependable Fords. Then one day he turned up in a baby-poo brown Holden Kingswood station wagon, and I was plunged into an existential crisis from which I'm not sure I've fully recovered. When I quizzed him on this betrayal, he shrugged with the theological confidence of a man who has made his peace with God. "It was cheaper." I stared at my Scalextric Bathurst Fords and wondered who I was anymore. 

Check in at Mount Panorama

These days my tribal loyalties have softened — I drive a Kia, which is essentially conscientious objection — and I haven't watched Bathurst in years. So why am I staying at Rydges Mount Panorama, a hotel that sits so close to the racetrack you half expect the ghost of Peter Brock to come thundering past the window? Because they've recently opened the most fabulous dog-friendly rooms. And when you're an empty-nester in your late 50s, the dog is the child. Full stop. 

My wife — a travel photographer with excellent taste in both lenses and mini schnauzers — imagines our hairy boy at home, slumped on the couch, overcome with grief, slowly licking his coat into a state of mournful disarray. I'm fairly confident he enjoys the break. But any chance she has to bring him along, she takes. 

Most of you will know the Mt Victoria Pass is closed for repairs, which means the Bells Line of Road. Locals will tell you it's often faster anyway, and for once, the locals are right. We arrive without drama, which is more than can be said for most of the cars that have taken this same general direction over the decades. 

Read more: Road trips: Blue Mountains to Bathurst

Rydges reception is a beautiful nostalgia ambush — black and white portraits of 1970s Bathurst racing line the walls, and there's a glass cabinet of the exact model cars I once raced across carpet. My wife is initially suspicious of the hotel's proximity to the track ("yep, it's on the track"), but the dog-friendly room disarms her completely. Ground floor. Opens straight onto a strip of wee-inviting grass, complete with doggie bags and a bin. Inside, the room is lovely and generously sized, with — naturally — paintings of a Holden and a Ford facing each other across the wall like old rivals at a school reunion. The kitchen is properly equipped, tempting enough to suggest you could cook one night and feel virtuous about it. The bathroom is fine, though those with less agile knees may regard the tall bath/shower combination with the same wariness one brings to unsolicited advice. A note too: the dog rooms are accessed via stairs, which is worth knowing before you pack the elderly dachshund.
 

Motorsport history and pizza in Bathurst

Image: National Motoring Racing Museum, Bathurst

Next door, the National Motor Racing Museum is a shrine to everything that made Sunday afternoons sacred in this country. I drool over immaculate machines from my childhood — the smell of old rubber and polished metal, the weight of all those close finishes and famous crashes. Trophies, race suits, leathers, footage dating back to the 1920s. It is, unfortunately, not dog-friendly, so we leave our man in the car with the windows cracked and his tail doing the sort of slow, philosophical wag that means he's fine but wants you to know he noticed. 

That evening we head to Church Bar and Wood Fired Pizza in Ribbon Gang Lane — named, satisfyingly, after the area's notorious bushrangers. The space is a revamped brick schoolhouse, loud with colour and the scent of charred dough and wood smoke. Cocktails arrive in shades that suggest someone has been experimenting with natural dyes. The toppings are inventive; the wine list, solid. They have a dog-friendly courtyard, where we sit and enjoy the food and curse, with the weary resignation of people our age, the complete absence of chair backs. What is it with the youth and their enthusiasm for dining on furniture that appears to have been liberated from a building site? But we would absolutely go back.

 

Vintage shopping and high tea

The following morning we drop into the Bathurst Visitor Centre, which is always worth doing — these are the people who know about the thing that opened last week, the hidden gem that isn't on any app yet. Then it's into Vintage Vibes Emporium, deep in the heart of town, where mid-century objects glow under fluorescent light like artefacts from a better-dressed era. We trawl happily, the way one does when the clock has briefly been suspended. 

High tea at the Tea House follows — and if you haven't been, go. A big pot of tea and scones for $17.50, dog-friendly, and enough teapots for sale to satisfy even the most committed collector. It is the kind of place that makes you slow down and mean it.

Image: Tea, The Tea Specialty Shop, Bathurst

 

Step inside Ben Chifley’s Bathurst home

Image: Room at Chifley Home and Museum

Then, the Chifley Home and Museum. Walking through it is like opening a drawer in your grandmother's house and finding it hasn't been touched since 1948. Remarkably, most of the original furniture and artefacts are still here — the modest belongings of one of Australia's finest prime ministers, preserved with quiet dignity. At $15 a head, it is a bargain and a genuinely moving window into Bathurst's most famous son. I'm a Chifley man, having stayed at his suite at Hotel Kurrajong, and this only deepens the feeling. 

Gin, whisky and a perfect Bathurst finale

We end the afternoon at Bathurst Grange Distillery, an historic estate that — should you need the credential — once received Charles Darwin. My wife and I have been writing travel yarns for over twenty years, which means some places come around again, and what's lovely about revisiting is seeing the growth. The last time we were here was for Open Road; since then, the place has blossomed. They're opening a new kitchen imminently, and the energy is palpable — the hum of a place that knows what it's becoming.

Image: Drinks at Bathurst Grange Distillery

Their gin is exceptional. Their whisky has won international awards. The place is full of people working their way through a gin paddle with the focused contentment of people who have made excellent decisions. We join them, the afternoon light going golden over the hills, a dog asleep under the table, and all thoughts of Fords and Holdens finally, mercifully, at rest.

 

 

One of the few proper hotel options in regional NSW where the dog isn’t treated like an afterthought. Ground-floor rooms open straight onto grass, meaning fewer awkward elevator negotiations and more dignified exits for your travelling companion. Add uninterrupted views of Conrod Straight and you’ve got a stay where both driver and co-driver are catered for.