The annual Easter crawl back up the coast caused lengthy delays along the Princes Highway on Monday afternoon.
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As holidaymakers dismantled their tents, locked the doors of their beach shacks and hit the road to begin the drive home, cars began to steadily bank up at Nowra and Berry.
While the delays weren’t quite so bad as the 11-kilometre southbound queues at Kiama when people kicked off their long weekend on Friday, by 1pm northbound cars were lined up for more than six kilometres at Berry, adding an extra hour to most trips.
A four-kilometre jam at Nowra eased by about 3pm, while the road at Berry cleared around 5pm.
There was also heavy holiday traffic at Wilton at the Hume Highway and Picton Road intersection late in the afternoon, with motorists told to expect long delays.
Across the rest of NSW, snarls developed on the Great Western Highway near Blackheath and southbound motorists driving home from the Central Coast faced delays of up to 45 minutes on the Pacific Motorway.
Drivers on the North Coast faced the most frustrating hold-up, with a 23-kilometre northbound queue on the Pacific Highway in Ewingsdale adding two hours to the trip mid afternoon.
Monday marked the final day of NSW Police’s Operation Tortoise, with 59,275 people breath tested, 1427 non-speed traffic infringement notices issued and 910 speeding fines handed out.
The traffic blitz ends at 11.59pm on Monday night.