Yamba [via Fingal Head, Hastings Pt, Evans Head] – 20 to 24 March 2011

We drove the Tweed Heads Way part of which is the old Pacific Highway and walked to the Lighthouse at Fingals Head. We overnighted at Hastings Point and then drove through Byron Bay with lunch overlooking a surf break at Evans Head before arriving at Yamba.

Yamba is a nice little fishing village where we camped on the Clarence River.
Just up the road is Angourie which is supposed to have the best Point Break in Australia. Surfers can be seen hugging the headland waiting for the perfect wave, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.


Yamba was a major port but has now been overtaken by Grafton. It is amazing to see the various rock walls used to 'train' the current effectively self dredging the river. After over a hundred years of work the scheme was perfected, just in time for the decline in coastal shipping services, although the shipping service to Lord Howe Island still uses the Port.

There is a ferry service between Yamba and Iluka, the villages on each side of the mouth of the Clarence River. We took the ferry to Iluka, walked the ocean walk and watched the thousands of little blue swimmer crabs scurrying around the sand. A popular boat type were outriggers made out of corrugated iron. One was called MV Roof.

We also took a cruise to the Bridge at Grafton on one of the ferries. This is sugar cane country, flat and pleasant. On the night of 19 March the moon was at its closest to earth since 1992.


We visited the Blue Hole and Green Hole at Angourie, the remains of two quarries used to supply rock for the river walls until they finally hit an underground spring and filled up with water.