Unfortunately, we live in a world where driver confidence often outweighs driver talent, and winding roads are a magnet to those types of drivers.
But there is one particular road south of Sydney that attracts more of those drivers than anywhere else - the Royal National Park.
Accidents happen along this tourist drive so often that a Facebook page has slowly amassed a large following and collection of crashed cars over the past ten years.
For most New South Welshmen, the “Help, I’ve binned my car in the Nasho” Facebook page has become somewhat of a pop-culture icon. Since 2016, when the page was created by a local man who wishes to remain anonymous, there have been some spectacular crashes featured for just a 35km stretch of road.
I headed out there to find out why people can’t help “binning it in the Nasho”.
What is the Royal National Park?
The Royal National Park, or Nasho for short, is a tourist drive south of Sydney and North of Wollongong, New South Wales. It sits between Helensburgh and Sutherland, acting as an access road to localities in between.
It’s actually one of the earliest roads in the area, with some sections dating back to the 19th century and the park being established in 1879.
In the later 20th century, it became a destination drive thanks to the road linking up with popular beaches such as Wattamolla, Marley and Bundeena, as well as tourist hot spots like Audley and Wedding Cake Rock.
However, it also offers 35km (not including side roads) of winding bends and well-paved roads that have long attracted car enthusiasts to the area. The road has gained so much notoriety that local car YouTubers, Mighty Car Mods, produced a sticker paying homage to the famous road/race circuit, the Nürburgring, but in the shape of the national park.
But with it being such a well-paved piece of road, why do so many people stack it here?
Why do people bin it in the Nasho so often?
The most basic answer is speed. The speed limit is 60km/h throughout most of the route, with some straight and clear sections increasing to 80km/h on straight aways. Not everyone behaves, though, as evidenced by the multiple police operations that are run throughout hotspot weekends in the Royal National Park.
In a Facebook post, Strike Force PUMA, a specialist road safety operation run by NSW Highway Patrol, said that over the course of one weekend, officers issued 12 speeding fines (five over 30km/h the speed limit and two over 45km/h over the speed limit), three for "crossing solid lines" and one for a burnout.
But I still wanted to give drivers who crash on this stretch of road the benefit of the doubt, and I headed out there to observe it for myself to see if it was a challenging road to tackle.
When you enter the Royal National Park from the suburb of Waterfall, you are presented with several short winding corners that don’t really allow you to speed up and be caught out by a sudden sharp turn.
However, reaching the bottom of the hill will bring you to a T intersection. Taking a right here and heading towards Wollongong, you will be faced with a plethora of long, non-challenging corners.
As you get closer to Bald Hill Lookout, you meet with the two most commonly crashed on corners.
Because you can easily glide through most of the corners leading up to this one section, it may come as a shock to less experienced drivers, especially if exceeding the speed limit, when the road dips down into a right-angle, with a recommended speed of 25km/h.
It’s not even a challenging turn either; it’s not hidden or off-camber, it just compresses the suspension if you’re going too fast and requires heavy braking to wash off speed.
More likely, it is that drivers become complacent after spending time driving the long, winding turns; the tighter bend is underestimated by drivers, and they head into this sharp turn too fast, whacking the outside guardrail.
There are two of these corners within quick succession of each other, and if the first one doesn’t catch out an overconfident driver, the second one surely will.
The corner is well signposted, even fitted with a digital sign that will flash if you’re going too quickly into it, yet it still seems to have its guardrail clobbered often.
Another quirk about the road is that it’s canopied by trees nearly the whole way through, meaning that there is constant foliage and branches on the road, as well as after rain, the road never seems to dry and has wet patches throughout.
Yet all things considered, driving throughout left no outstanding obstacles that made me think “wow, this is a dangerous road”, the surface is well-paved through 70 per cent of the route, the speed limit isn’t too high that sections will catch you off-guard and large vehicles rarely take these roads unless attending one of the small communities.
While there are some considerations, such as branches and water on the road, they’re mostly not an issue at the speed limit.
It’s been quite some time since I drove through the Nasho, and I honestly went out thinking it was more dangerous than I remember. But, when obeying the speed limit, it is still an entertaining and picturesque drive worthy of a visit by drivers of all levels. It's best enjoyed this way too, as there's very little chance of being named and shamed on social media - and no one needs that!
Zane Dobie comes from a background of motorcycle journalism, working for notable titles such as Australian Motorcycle News Magazine, Just Bikes and BikeReview. Despite his fresh age, Zane brings a lifetime of racing and hands-on experience. His passion now resides on four wheels as an avid car collector, restorer, drift car pilot and weekend go-kart racer.
