Tiff and myself recently attended my sister’s wedding in Nowra, we chose to drive down and covered a distance that would cross about 30 European countries. On the way back we decided to stop at Coffs Harbour and spend the night, mainly because a couple of Christmases ago we stopped in at Coffs to grab some fish and chips and from our vantage point at the end of the jetty, I had seen some of the best waves I had seen in a long time and I thought this would be a great opportunity to take a closer look.

Tiff enjoying breakfast at one of the many cafes in Coffs Harbour

Tiff phoned ahead and managed to get us a room at a place called Park Beach Hotel Motel, the room rate was around $69 for the night which is cheap for Australian standards and the person on the other end said we could collect the room key from the bar, so you can imagine that we were expecting a less than savory kind of environment but a room is a room right.

We made fairly good time and arrived in Coffs at around 8:30 on Sunday night, we were greeted with the expected empty streets and closed businesses, usual of most sundowner towns in Aus. We were however surprised to find a street full of cars when we arrived at our accommodation and were even more surprised when we walked inside to find the place packed full of mostly Irish backpackers dancing, chatting and having a great time all set to a backdrop of some pumping tunes. The staff were ultra friendly and helpfully organized our room key and sent us down to the kitchens in time to grab a couple of awesome meals. The room was neat and compact with everything that was necessary to get refreshed and grab a good night sleep.

We decided to go for a walk after our meal and found even more backpackers chilling in the park, playing Frisbee and having a yarn.

The next morning Tiff and I went down to the beach to catch some of those cracking waves, I didn’t bring my surf board on this trip and did some body surfing instead, those that did however have surf boards were catching an endless supply of fun little waves and one of the locals was saying that when the harbor goes off you can catch right handers that go on forever.

After our swim we went to find some breakfast and discovered a plethora of little cafes and restaurants located on the same road as the jetty that had a wide variety of delicious and reasonably priced offererings.

Tiff outside one of the many cafes in Coffs Harbour

In all of my experiences with Coffs Harbour I have found it to contain friendly people, great service, amazing experiences, incredible natural resources and delicious fish and chips. If you ever get the opportunity to check out the mighty Coffs Harbour then I would highly recommend you don’t pass it up and make sure you take or hire a surf board, I know I will be on the next trip. #surfing #beachculture