Northern Rivers Journal

 

A couple of weekends ago, friends of Goodlids, Jake Jayes and Katie Stewart  decided to escape the long weekend crowds and headed south from Byron to spend a couple of days exploring the old-school surf towns and national parks of northern New South Wales, here's their field notes of the trip, complete with beautifully captured stills!

Our first destination was Angourie. A little village near to the fishing town of Yamba and home to the Angourie Surf Reserve, a unique peninsula which on its day offers an incredible range of waves.

Continuing south, we found a remote beach near Sandon River that offered 4WD access and plenty of waves. With no others in sight, Jake braved the sharky conditions for a session with a pod of 30+ friendly dolphins.

 

It was awesome to experience the contrasting colours of the red dirt, green forests and blue coastline at the heart of the Yuragir. National Park. Very different to the landscapes back home in New Zealand. 

 

The Yuraygir National Park has three laid back camping areas to pick from. They are a great low cost place to stay, especially if you want to keep on 'the good side' of the local park rangers and avoid disturbing the native wildlife. We found a spot to perch up for the night and cook a sunset dinner of cheesy toasties, overlooking the coastal red cliffs.

 

Since selling everything and moving across the ditch we have had to begin our camping set up from scratch. This meant a bit of a dusty cook up when we realised we had forgotten some of the basics like dishwashing liquid and utensils...luckily it tasted great anyways.

 

Dinner was followed by more beers and a sunset fish.

After an awesome previous day in the sun exploring, it was time to pack up camp and have one final surf before taking the road home!