Braidwood is a small Southern Tablelands town with more substance than its size suggests. Its main street still reads as a nineteenth-century gold-rush service town: broad, low, and lined with old inns, shops, churches, and weathered cottages.
The town is easy to underestimate if you are only driving between Canberra and the South Coast. Slow down and it becomes a good half-day stop, with the Braidwood Museum, the heritage streetscape, and Bedervale giving the old town real depth.
Braidwood also works as a base for rougher country to the east. The Big Hole Walking Track is the reason to keep your walking shoes handy rather than treating the place as only coffee and petrol.