North Coast

Let’s start south and head north …

If you ever wondered what attracted Prime Minister John Howard to Hawks Nest for his December break year after year, I reckon it’s because it’s all very 1950s. On the safe little beach you’ll see pushbikes against trees, frisbees whizzing, dogs wandering, Mums organising the picnic, Dads wetting the line, people reading books under umbrellas and kids mucking about in boats.

Bulahdelah has a name that says it must be interesting but water lovers should keep on going. It is, however, an excellent base for bushwalkers wanting to explore the Myall Lakes or State forests.

Forster-Tuncurry, in the Great Lakes district, are two towns joined by a bridge over Wallis Lake (famous for its oysters and good fishing). I was having a ‘beach breakfast’, watching kids take canoe lessons and a sand-tractor clear the beach of rubbish and footprints, when the man at the next table struck up a conversation.

He hadn’t been there for forty years but, with grown-up kids and a messy divorce behind him, he now had time. Perhaps he needed the comfort that some things don’t change - and they hadn’t too much. He said he was delighted to find ‘the same wave sounds, the same soft sand and the same salty smell… but, if the high-rise keeps going, it’ll end up like the Gold Coast’.

Looking at the seven-storey apartment block between us and the sleepy little shops, I doubt it. It’s still a country town on the coast.

Wauchope would be just another country town but for nearby Timbertown, a re-creation of a typical 1880s, well, timber town. Once a convict settlement, Port Macquarie is now the major holiday resort on the coast. There are excellent beaches, resorts, nightlife, golf, fishing and coastal walks. You will need to book ahead in peak periods.

Crescent Head is a bit of a Mecca for surfers and Kempsey offers Aboriginal cultural experiences and owns the factory that makes Akubra hats.

South West Rocks is another lovely beachside spot and the Trial Bay Gaol is a diversion worth turning off the highway to see. It’s not as dramatic as Port Arthur, but it’s historic and well kept. Sitting on the headland, it was used from 1886 to 1903 in a failed attempt to employ long-term prisoners for public works. It was later a German internment camp during World War I.

Macksville is a nice town on the Nambucca River on the way to Taylors Arm where the Cosmopolitan Hotel claims the fame of being the ‘Pub with No Beer’. Nambucca Heads is a delightful spot for boating and watersports, and has the only island in the country set aside for a golf course, the Stuart Island Golf Club.

Valla Beach is lovely and large, with a safe, sheltered, paddling spot for toddlers. Sawtell has some good resorts, wildlife sanctuaries and, I believe, an Annual Chilli Festival.

Apart from the Big Windmill and the Big Banana (click here for my opinion of Australia’s obsession with BIG things), I like Coffs Harbour. It’s a large yet friendly holiday town. Some 20 kilometres north, Emerald Beach is typical of many of the fine beaches in this area.

Woolgoolga is an interesting town with a good beach. The population includes around 10 per cent Sikh, so temples and Indian women in traditional dress make this town feel a little different. There appears to be racial harmony, but the two communities have little in common apart from geography. Marriages are mostly arranged in the traditional Indian manner, although one old local quipped, ‘We’ve given a girl away, but we got a boy over to our camp’.

Grafton is a picturesque town with solid 1800s architecture, cruises on the Clarence, as well as white water rafting and canoeing.

It gets pretty packed (and just plain pretty) late October and early November for the Jacaranda Festival. Fishing, prawning and surfing are popular at Yamba and Evans Head. Inland on the Richmond River, Casino is a typical country town with wide streets and verandahed hotels, and nearby Lismore is the regional centre. Ballina is a fishing town with good family beaches and river cruises. Lennox Head is a charming, seaside village with Seven Mile Beach and a freshwater lake. Surfers head for The Point.

Byron, as the locals call Byron Bay, has an eclectic mix of people – hippies, ‘ferals’, wealthy retirees, artists, backpackers and well-heeled tourists. There are excellent beaches, many fine restaurants, good scuba diving and a hinterland. The prime dive location is Julian Rocks where you may come across turtles and you will come across sharks, usually harmless.

Admittedly I used my tank of air faster than I normally would have, probably because of that word in the previous sentence. The word was ‘usually’, not ‘sharks’. Yes, there was a fatality some years ago, but more people would have met their end crossing the main street. Remember to look both ways …

I learnt to ride a surfboard at Wategos Beach at the tender age of 39, so a couple of tips for old newcomers. The pain in your chest the following day is not an impending coronary, just a result of using muscles you previously didn’t know you had. The other tip is not to panic when a dorsal fin skims past your board – it will belong to a dolphin, not a shark.

Cape Byron is the most easterly point in Australia and the lighthouse attracts a lot of visitors. A pretty well kept secret is that the lighthouse cottages are available for rent at a reasonable price from a real estate agency in town.

They have two bedrooms and are comfortably furnished with a large backyard. The gates to the lighthouse close from dusk to 8am and you are given a key, which gives you a pretty special place for evening drinks and a sunrise at the country’s most easterly point.

Mullumbimby is a nice town, not quite as alternate as nearby Nimbin, and has the curious boast of being the ‘Biggest Small Town in Australia’. On my recent re-visit to Brunswick Heads I couldn’t help thinking ‘tits and tatts’: tattooed men in singlets with a fishing line in one hand, a can of VB in the other and a ciggie in the mouth, while large Mums spilled from one-piece bathers preparing the family picnics.

Murwillumbah, on the Tweed, offers houseboat holidays and a good base for exploring Mount Warning National Park and Nightcap National Park.

Tweed Heads is the State’s northern-most town and there’s no discernable ‘border’, just a feeling as the low-rise gives way to the high-rise Coolangatta.

And now, you are in Queensland.

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