Northern Rivers defines a region to the very north of the Australian State of New South Wales starting 590 kilometres from Sydney and extending north out to just over 800 kilometres away from the State capital city. It's full of lush valleys, pristine coastline and combines the catchment areas of the Clarence, Tweed and Richmond rivers.
We were in the region for the wedding of a friends daughter and had made the 2,000 kilometre drive from home to Ballina in our four wheel drive towing our off-road camper along too. It would provide accommodation and the 4x4 would permit us to get a little off the beaten track and away from people.
We had arranged a few weeks off so based ourselves at Ballina and ranged out from there; Here's some of the photos. I'm sorry, they are not great quality as my camera was a bit dodgy. (Not to mention how dodgy the photographer was...Is dodgy!)
Australia is fortunate to have a lot of coastline, most of which looks something like this. 👆 Add in some blue skies with a few clouds scudding across and the surf relentlessly pushing up onto the beach plus my wife Faith and...Well you can see the result for yourself.
See how crowded our beaches are...Not! For Faith and I this is how we like beaches...The cities can keep their tourist-loaded crowd-fests to themselves...Pristine beach and no other people suits us fine! We had been out for a walk on this occasion, stopped for a quick selfie and went on our way - We saw no one else.
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The trip was about the wedding into which we incorporated a vacation and we wanted to relax and do very little; That doesn't mean sit around camp though, it meant getting out into the great outdoors hiking, biking, swimming, climbing and horse riding...And eating.
The day we chose for horse riding was a bit overcast but it was fairly warm still and it gave the sky a sort of dramatic feel which looked nice; We were focused on the riding though so didn't care.
Above is Faith and I walking our mounts along the beach. This is the first time we'd ridden on the beach and it was cool! I was given a problematic mount though, as the owner thought I'd be more able to control him; It was a contest of wills but I won out. He didn't like being behind other horses though and would accelerate into the lead against my will. Trouble maker.
The next shows me trying to coax him into the water which he wasn't very keen on ay first. The stubborn bugger just wouldn't go in but eventually I managed to get him into the surf and he loved it...The next problem was getting him out! Stubborn bastard. (A little like the rider.)
The day of the wedding came around and the weather was still clearing from an overnight storm. It was a nice wedding although, much to my annoyance, it was on the beach and I'm not a huge fan of sand, certainly not when I'm dressed for a wedding. We ended up taking our shoes off and I rolled up my trousers. Faith had on a short skirt so that wasn't a problem. I got sand on my trousers though...And grumbled about it.
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The reception was near a marina and we all had a really nice family-oriented night, loads of laughs and I even danced a bit...Which I hate doing...I may have had one beer too many...And three espresso martinis! I'm a funny dude when a little tipsy, something that doesn't happen often. Faith finds it funny as she's seen it so rarely. The picture above was taken at the edge of the restaurant and you can see the marina in the distance.
From right about here it started getting a little messy and in the end Faith was mock-frowning at me, not smiling...But it's all good...It was a great wedding and we both had a nice time.
The cool thing with the Northern Rivers area is the beaches and rain forest areas are both easily accessible; One could take a swim or run on the beach in the morning and a long hike in the forest that afternoon, quite easily.
The day after the wedding we started early and drove up into the hinterland towards the Nightcap National Park for some hiking.
I was feeling a little dusty after the night before but the prospect of a hike and a few waterfalls perked me up, along with a couple cups of coffee.
Above you can see a shot Faith took through the windscreen of my 4x4. It was quite a foggy morning but gave the forest a nice feel, sort of spooky. Sorry about the CB antenna in the shot.
We hit a few dirt roads once inside the National Park rolling the windows down to enjoy the birdsong and rich earthy smells of the wet forest as we went.
We're always on the scout for great camping spots so we stopped a few times and made notes for future trips then headed straight to the car park area below a fairly long hike to some falls. There was no one else there as we'd arrived very early (on purpose) and we pulled our hiking boots on, grabbed the backpack and headed off to explore.
You can see above that Faith is in short shorts and a summer top which was required as it was pretty warm a couple hours into the hike, humid too. A little after this photo was taken the top came off completely and she hiked in a bikini top; Of course, I had my shirt off almost immediately as I feel the heat more than she does.
The hike wound through dense rain forest, creeks, pools and small water falls and beneath the canopy out of the sun it was steamy but breaking out of the canopy brought the sun, thinly veiled behind some residual cloud, but still hot!
It was enjoyable though, accompanied by the birds and lizards, (and probably snakes), which slithered away as we approached; We could hear them in the underbrush and as long as they were going away from us it was all good. To be honest though, it's not an unsafe place to hike, from a snake perspective I mean, but there are some very steep drops and it can be slippery, so some care is required.
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Along the way we found some really cool spots like the one below. It wasn't easy getting in as the rocks were all slippery and uneven but once there we went for a swim and stood under the waterfall...Faith may have been topless so there's no photos for you I'm afraid...I took some though. 😈
It was a really cool mid-hike stop-over and...Well, what happens at the secluded waterfall pond stays at the secluded waterfall pond; A gentleman never kisses and tells you know. 😜 Seriously though, it was a nice spot that felt Jurassic; Lost-worldy.
We managed to get most of our clothes back on and hiked up to the waterfall called Minyon Falls (pictured below) which was basically a very wide fast-flowing creek that fell off a very long cliff-drop! There's a hike that goes to the bottom where people can swim but we didn't do it.
It's a 100 metre drop to the base from the look out where the photo was taken and many people have fallen to their death including an Australian TV show actor in 2019. I guess if one wants to jump the fence of the look out area and take risks, one must accept the consequences. We stayed on the lookout platform.
This was a really nice place and where we chose to stop for lunch, which we'd brought with us. We sat and ate whilst enjoying the sound of the waterfall and the view over the forest.
It wasn't long before other hikers turned up but we managed to have the inbound hike and about forty five minutes at the waterfall by ourselves so we were content. We headed into the forest for the hike back to our vehicle with a brief stop off at a couple of pools for a cool of...Mostly clothed this time.
That day we returned to our campsite for showers and then headed out for a bite to eat, neither of us being keen to cook for ourselves...And me eager for a feed after the big hike.
As we drove along the coast road we marveled at the view to the east over the ocean. If we could have seen far enough over the ocean the next land we would have seen is Argentina.
Below is a spot we stopped for dinner after grabbing some burgers and chips; We stayed quite late here letting the sun set behind us on what was a pretty nice day.
Our two week stay in Ballina was super-enjoyable and we would definitely go back. In fact we're hoping to take a trip to Far North Queensland this year to see my brother and his wife and will head back home this way I think.
There's a little of everything in the Northern Rivers area including the beaches and water sports, hiking, walking, four wheel driving, fishing, boating and just about everything you can think of that you'd want to do whilst on holiday. It's dotted with quaint little towns like Tweed Heads, Kings Cliff, Byron Bay, Brunswick Heads, Kyogle, Lismore and so many more smaller places of only a handful of houses...And the natural beauty is amazing too! Just look at that beach below where Faith is sitting!
I'd suggest four to five days is ample in Ballina itself but the Northern Rivers is somewhere one could easily spend a few weeks or longer. There's accomodation at every price and comfort level from expensive resorts, hotels, B&B's and farm-stays to camping like we did...Something for everyone certainly and a four wheel drive vehicle is not required...Unless you want to get to the really great (and secluded) spots!
That's about it for now, thanks for scrolling through my pictures, and if you actually read the 1749 words of my text, thank you!
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Be well
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