Sydney is only actually a 10 hours drive south of Brisbane, so do-able in a day, a very long day but still. I fail to see why anyone would want to do the journey though without having several stop offs on the way, unless you’re on a plane. New South Wales is beautiful. Very different from Queensland in every sense, but nonetheless a lovely state to drive through. You can even notice the differences immediately the other side of the border, strange! When I started planning the journey it was decided that we had to make the round trip in 7 days, only problem was I had found enough exciting things to, lovely places to see, and restaurants to enjoy to cover a month. Time to get picky!
We started off on the journey by a quick stop in Bangalow a quaint little town a bit inland from Byron Bay. Like Byron it oozes a chilled out hippy feel, there are coffee stops galore, antiques shops, kooky wine bars and belly bursting organic cafes. We’ve been back several times since and each occasion found somewhere different to eat that was better than the last. Food heaven!
Next stop on the trip, and where we were staying, was Coffs Harbour. We didn’t get to see much of it but what we did see was lovely. On the journey down (which is about 5 hours from Brisbane) we had a call from the place we were meant to be staying. No this isn’t the kind of call you want on your first day, let alone when you had searched and researched the best place to stay. Low and behold that was not to be our stop for the night. I won’t name the hotel but basically we were told that their power had failed so no one could stay (we later found out this was utter crap), but they would be kind enough to find us alternative accommodation. We agreed and were called back to say they had found us two rooms at the Novotel Pacific Bay Resort. I was now confused. That was where I had wanted to stay but it was fully booked. Hummmm. Anyway we arrive at our new hotel, checked in without issues and went to our room, only to find just the one bed. This was going to be cosy! I hot footed it back to reception and asked for the other set of keys which was returned with a look of horror, see where this is going? Place 1 had only booked us one room, one double bed and there were four of us. Place B was fully booked. Fortunately the matter was resolved, we all moved to a different part of the hotel, rooms next to each other (disabled suites but it didn’t matter) and Place A footed the bill for their error. Result!
The hotel itself is lovely, some of it is new, some old. There is a small golf course on site, spa, health club and basically anything you'd need. It is also a two minute walk from a small sandy cove, big enough to sunbath on and water too beautiful not to swim in!
Stunning beach at sunset
The best part of our time in Coffs was the food. We went down to the jetty and stumbled across Latitude 30. Gorgeous restaurant and bar overlooking the sea in all directions. The food was incredible (mainly fresh as you like seafood but some tasty meat options too), great Australian wines on the menu, as well as some Europeans. Service was wonderful and you just can’t beat the setting and comfort of the restaurant. Oh, and the desserts were lip smackingly good!!
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