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South West Rocks to Byron Bay
SWR is a delightful, tiny coastal town with stunning scenery and it’s only five hours drive North of Sydney. It’s famous for Trial Bay Gaol, Smoky Cape Lighthouse and Fish Rock Cave, this is a must do dive if you’re a diver!
The Gaol is perched on headland in the Arakoon State Conservation Area, established in the 1880’s for prisoners to build a breakwater in Trial Bay, the scheme failed and the Gaol closed. It reopened again during the First World War as an internment camp for citizens of German descent. Now, it’s a ruin nestling on the headland amongst picnic areas overlooking the bay. The Australians really do know how to support outdoor recreational activities, they provide safe BBQ’ areas, benches/tables, shade and there is virtually no litter!
Smoky Cape is fantastic and the views across the 15 miles of Smoky beach are truly breathtaking. Humpback Whales can be seen from here but we are a bit ahead of them in their long journey north to breed in Hervey Bay, Queensland. www.smokycapelighthouse.com
We did see a lot of kangaroos when we were driving about in the area, especially near the Tavern by
Trial Bay South West Rocks
In the distance you can see Fish Rock- a brilliant dive site the river, rivers here are really, really, really wide. The kangeroos proved to be fascinating for us, but for the locals it’s a bit like having rabbits in the UK on your lawn!
There are two dive centres, we dived with South West Rocks Dive Centre: www.southwestrockdive.com.au This is a dive experience is not to be missed. The dark underwater cave (tunnel) runs right through Fish Rock and is 120 metres long. Before we entered the deepest part (24m) at the wide gutter (they call the openings a bubble cave) we encountered wobbegongs and large grey nurse sharks- our understanding of nurse sharks is something quite different to Aussies and we weren’t expecting to see such large predators cruising past us!. The cave is narrow for the first 15 metres and you have to fin through a V shaped narrow shute before entering the wider and shallower part of the cave. The light at the shallow bubble cave is a welcome sight and the marine life in this section is fantastic- so many fish; schools of bullseyes, rock lobsters, hairy lobsters, sponges, corals and gorgonian fans. You leave the wide bubble at 10 metres, then descend on the outside
SMOKY BEACH SWR
We camped here 25 years ago, not much has changed on the site! of Fish Rock where we saw more nurse sharks, eagle rays, a large logger head turtle, a hawksbill, plus loads of fish, including rare Black Cod and many others we can’t identify yet- so we have bought a book. This is probably the best non UK dive we have done since our trip to Galapagos. SWR are forming a dive club- The Hairy Lobsters, the dive staff were good fun and keen to have us back?
When we left SWR we stayed at Port Macquarie for 3 nights, this was quite a busy resort town, but as its autumn here it wasn’t packed with holiday makers. I doubt very much we would enjoy being there in the summer. It was pleasant and a lot of energetic people took advantage of the coastal walk-way each day, jogging, cycling, power walking or in our case a regular stroll! In the evening at dusk thousands of fruit bats could be seen flocking over the harbour. If you look hard you will see them on the photo.
We took the time to visit the Koala Hospital, it was well worth the visit and we learnt a lot about the rescue programme, their habitat
and enemies. Most of the Koala’s are admitted because of dog attacks and road traffic accidents. Some have an unpleasant condition called: wet bottom, this a version of Chlamydia, anyway I’m sure you don’t want to know about that in any detail…….
Coffs Harbour was our next destination; the northern aspect is peppered with delightful beaches and we went to Red Rock, Wooli and Corindi beach, all have views to the Solitary Islands. We did dive there; it was a good day, a bit rough though.
We have also been to some of the Hinterland; Bellingen is a very pretty town, offering an alternative lifestyle. There were some interesting characters about, they look like they arrived in the 60’s or early 70’s and seem to be some sort of time warp!
Ulmarra is a tiny, quaint little town, nestling on the banks of the Clarence-another very wide river; the journey along its banks took us past acres of sugar cane plantations, fabulous. We also liked Bangalow, a pretty little hillside town, boasting lots of coffee shops- in fact Oz is full of coffee houses.
We spent 2 nights at Yamba, home of the famous prawn, the fishing
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Hey...we were here first.....so go take a jump! harbour is interesting but we didn’t rate the town much, however we spent two evenings getting cheap food at the Bowling Club- this is a big sport here in OZ and the club houses are really modern.We were fortunate to see a talented band on the Friday night.
Byron Bay was a stark cultural contrast to Yamba. Byron is lovely and there are a lot of great eating holes and plenty of accommodation to choose from. So far we have got our best deals from estate agents doing short lets- 2-3 nights. Byron Bay was not full of back packers when we were there and the pace of life is slow. The industrial/artists estate just outside is well worth a visit. We walked from Byron Bay to Byron Cape Lighthouse, this was about a 4 k round trip- pretty steep in places but well worth the climb.
More on our next Blog entry from Brisbane
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Amanda
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My kinda of town!
Bellingen here I come! So good to see some photos of you Steph - what have you done with John? . I am very, very jealous and just can't wait to see and dive it all myself! Lots of love A