BABS : Bed and Breakfast Site: Australia Accommodation

New South Wales

Subtropical NSW

1. Breathe deeply and relax.
2. Play in the water. There's a safe, netted swimming enclosure for children in Iluka bay; there's also good surfing at the beaches. Also on offer: windsurfing in the bay, snorkelling around the rocks at the Bluff, and surf skiers have fun on the waves at the beach.
3. Go fishing. You can fish the bay, the river, the beach, and there's deep  sea fishing too. Serious fisherpersons can do serious fishing, youngsters can have fun fishing for tiddlers off the wharf.
4. Eat seafood. You don't have to catch it yourself. You can buy locally caught fresh fish, prawns, crabs and oysters at the Co-op, either ready to eat or ready to cook.
5. Spot wildlife. Sit on the deck with a pair of binoculars if you feel lazy; take a walk through the bush or along the beach, or a ferry ride up the river. Spot dolphins year round, whales in spring.
6. Admire Mother Nature's handiwork. Iluka's littoral rainforest is World Heritage listed; don't miss the walk through it. You can walk (or 4-wheel-drive) for miles and miles along Shark Bay. Scramble round the headlands and peer in rock pools.
7. White water rafting on the Nymboida River is famous, and it's about an hour away.
8. National parks nearby include Yuraygir (spring wildflowers are spectacular), Gibraltar Range (1100 m above sea level) and Washpool (the last two both World Heritage-listed). Our own national park is Bundjalung, and it's pretty much in our backyard – huge stretches of unpeopled beaches and heathland, lagoons and coastal bush and rainforest behind the beach.
9. Play golf. Iluka's golf course is famous for having genuine homegrown sand bunkers, and for its emus and wallabies. (Local rules apply.)
10. Admire (or taste) some of the fruits of cultivation: 10 minutes away, in Woombah, is the world's most southerly coffee plantation. Sugar cane is widely grown – there's a sugar mill and refinery on Harwood Island, further up the Clarence, and you can arrange to see a cane farm. The Thursday Plantation tea tree farm is an hour or so away, near Ballina, and can be visited. Local fruits grown include avocados, citrus and macadamias – all can be bought locally, in season.