Australia’s Coffs Harbour: the beach goes on and on

My nose pressed against the plane’s oval window, the Coffs Harbour beach looked too good to be true, snaking like white ribbon along Australia’s New South Wales Coast. It wasn’t until I was earthbound and hiked from headland to headland that I realized the beach never ends; it simply repeats itself over and over like the chorus of a haunting song.

Every day was glorious, but to northern Canadian eyes, strangely faultless. For six days, the sun shone bright; the sky stayed blue. Max, my host manager at the Sandcastles Holiday Apartments, said these perfect days were the norm.

The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) claims Coffs Harbour has one of the best climates in Australia, with more hours of sunshine than Sydney to the south, and less humidity than the coastal towns of Queensland, to the north.

High-rise hotels (of the umpteenth stey sort) have not shouldered their way onto the beach. To get to the surf, you must walk through the tangle of greenery that protects the dunes. Here the cicadas don’t hum discreetly, but roar like a chorus of dentist drills.

Coffs Harbour’s main claim to fame is its Big Banana – a huge replica of the freckled fruit that greets visitors to a banana theme park. Don’t laugh. They take their bananas seriously here, and so they should. The area is the largest banana-producing district in New South Wales.

But there’s much more to Coffs Harbour than the Big Banana. With the rain forest at its back door and the Pacific Ocean at the front, Coffs Harbour has a unique combination of charms. Within a day’s drive is the Wollomombi Gorge, with the highest waterfalls in Australia. Just offshore is the Solitary Islands Marine Reserve. Here, clown fish dart through coral archways in a dazzling display that delights scuba divers and snorkellers.

Sitting on the beach, we spotted humpback whales on their way back to Antarctica. Their migration path takes them within miles of the Coffs Harbour shore.

To facilitate ship loading, they built a jetty that stretched about half a kilometre into the sea. Modern roads and rail systems made the jetty obsolete and it fell into disrepair. It was closed to the public but reopened as a heritage structure in 1997 after a complete restoration.

Today, the jetty is a focal point of the community — particularly on Sundays when the ice cream trucks jingle a merry tune and parents wheel baby strollers up and down the pier.

This is where you will find me again some day, watching the seagulls riding the wind and walking that long inviting stretch of sand.

We found our vacation package at Sandcastles Apartments through Australia’s Ansett Airways. You can reach Ansett Airlines in Canada by calling 1-800-366-1300 (during Australian business hours), or visit its website www.ansett.com.au. For more information on Australia’s Holiday Coast visit its website at www.holidaycoast.net.au/. For convenience and discount prices, however, shop your trip through CARPTravel, visit the website at www.carptravel.com or call toll-free 1-877-450-7587.