I've worked my way down the coast a bit more so
What's special about Yamba
I think it's mostly this pub. The town is a really good size like small enough all the locals can hang out and the tourists add to the place but don't ruin it. Yamba is structured so the beach is a cliff, less good for running out for a quick swim, bc you have to march all the way down and all the way back up. But this is great for the Yamba Hotel (Note: in Oz pubs are called hotels mostly cause back when all these places were villages the pub public house you know was like the real public building and also had a few rooms for rent and they are still my first port of call if there is no hostel, like the second cheapest room in that way ) Anyway the Yamba Hotel has floor to ceiling glass windows and is on this cliff just above the main beach so an incredible view out over the water and my first day in Yamba I took a break day there to play on my book and read and I was actually talked into it by the pub itself, I go in and the restaurant isn't open yet, I ask about a coffee but the pub kind of is hello alcoholism but they don't serve coffee but they're like feel free to have a drink or get this go get a take away coffee somewhere else and hang out for our views so I grabbed a series of lemon lime and bitters and made a day of their view.
I also saw fantastic beasts and how to find them 2 which was super thematic because I was reading the Harry Potter series on my way down the coast plus there's the world's most local movie theater in Yamba. And there I ran into a guy I knew from teaching, Graham who retired with his now husband (he was actually part of the marriage campaign in Yamba and said everyone was super supportive yay) of like 20 years in what used to be their vacation home and is now their life. And he is in like 12 local community campaigns and seems really joyful in retirement, where he used to be a bit cynical at work so I'm really glad it worked out for him so well tho I didn't get quite as much chatting with him as I would have liked, despite his best efforts. Anyway the town is special in that I was there for 2 or 3 days but I managed to drop into my new local bookstore twice and was treated so nice, this pub every day, visit the local cinema use my local bakery as a great takeaway to the beach breakfast option more than once you know I just felt like a simalcrum of living there comfortably almost immediately. Also I slow walked this ace lighthouse walk along more rocky cliffs.
About Angourie
There were blue pools and green pools and it managed to be both super quiet and also like a real hot spot for families and teens swimming etc. The cool part tho was that I had a picnic breakfast of pie and coffee, so I walked at an angle to the second nearest beach I hadn't seen, and then I noticed that you could totally walk along the beach to the next town, and so I just started out figuring if it was all too much I could always turn back and drive but I walked all the way out there and all the way back along the beach so it was like two hours of beach walking and then a couple hours of hanging around the the pools and then lunch out there and then a drink at the local pub in the evening and then home for dinner.
Red Cliff
Ok I'm on the road now so I had a model this trip where I basically picked the most small sometimes dirt coastal road and ducked into inlets like every 20-40 minutes down the road which is not far on these kinds of roads. Some places I just had a look, sometimes I went for a swim or a short walk or read my book on the beach for a bit, but like Byron, Yamba, Coffs Harbor, Port Macquarie, Newcastle, is the tourist trail, those are the major stops and have hostels and most people like bus between those, Yamba is barely even on that but these other places are like villages with maybe a campsite down a national park dirt road or a caravan park at the edge of town. And I'm only hanging out some of these places like 30 minutes rather than a couple of days. Still I think all my true favorite places were of this variety, tiny village, big national park, deserted beach, you know the other places are like towns which means they have grocery stores and places to eat and stay and lifeguarded beaches and maybe sights but also just a bit less atmospheric.
Ok Red Cliff itself, so named for its cliffs is on this hike which I would totally be into doing someday which is like a rudementary coastal trail that strings for four days from about Yamba down to broom's Head through the Yurangir national park. This national park rules, I drove through it for ages, littoral rainforest regular forest one gorgeous white sand cove after another just awesome. This campsite was super basic, a drinking water tap at the entrance to refill your tanks, basic campsites, a bank of chemical toilets. I thought my in-laws with their camping truck would be perfect here, pull up, set up your little kitchen and shower, use the facilities, you can stumble over a dune to a gorgeous private beach and there's a coastal day track if you want it. I did the lookout, cliffs and red rocks and walked a little down the trail but not far.
Broom's Head
If it had been later this was a great place to pull up my car and park for the night, nice little picnic area, particularly gorgeous beach. As it was I took the little very well maintained loop track to the lookout and back around through the forest. But it totally went to the next gorgeous cove and on and on. It's one of the places I marked in my head for the way back/ next trip. Freaking awesome.
Sandon River
The campsite here is all the way down an endless dirt road on a spit. I checked it out with intent thinking about staying here but wound up backtracking down the dirt road to a random beach access and taking a late afternoon swim on a completely deserted beach. I got out my towel and everything, swam walked up the beach swam again walked back swam again layed out on my towel reading and dozing while sunset started to happen and the breeze and sun wafted over me. I considered just sleeping right there on the beach, but I decided when it got cold from night it would stop being fun fast so I headed down the road as night fell.
Wooli
Wooli is an incredible and almost certainly totally underrated town, where the river meets the ocean over a long long spit. The town is further up and then as you go out the spit it gets more and more residential and scraggly. There's a long river walk, a sidewalk and then the beach goes on. I got in here late, as darkness fell and drove down this long long spit in the dark. Ate a cold supper in the back of my car and slept out here. In the morning I woke at dawn, of course, took a sunrise walk along the spit of beach. It was a good sunrise too, right over the point, and then when the sun crested I took a dawn swim. Showered in the public toilets and combed my hair at the river.
Mullaway
This was one of my places I marked for the way back, cause it was awesome, but a bit much for before breakfast, one of those coves between two hills Oz is great at, I took the little overlook walk and then jetted, but here would have been good to stay as well.
Woolgoolga
Had breakfast of champions and poked in a little used bookstore. Maybe my first espresso of the trip, very satisfying. The rest of the day I think was a lot of driving down dirt roads hopping out at various points, it was front loaded though and I wound up in coffs by the afternoon.
Coffs Harbor
I did a lot of walking at Coffs. The beaches are very picturesque but a bit cold and no surf but it's got a big foreshore and a lot of little paths. So the first day I walked out to Corambirra point where there's an old bunker and a hill lookout and a break wall that goes out a long way. Second day I wandered around on the piers and beach coves. On the morning of my last day I climbed up muttenbird island which is sort of the highlight of this place. It did command a lovely view.
