Northern Rivers

Byron Bay's reputation precedes it — and the cape at the most easterly point of Australia, where the lighthouse stands and dolphins ride the swells below in the morning, genuinely lives up to it. But the Northern Rivers is much larger than Byron, a subtropical coastal region of extraordinary variety stretching from the Clarence River south to the Tweed Valley and inland to the Border Ranges.

The hinterland behind Byron is where the region gets interesting. Nimbin, with its idiosyncratic culture and weekly markets, sits in lush valley country above Byron. The Nightcap National Park and Border Ranges protect ancient Gondwana rainforest — the same living forest that was connected to Antarctica when the continents separated — with some of the most spectacular waterfall walks in NSW. The Minyon Falls plunge 100 metres into a rainforest amphitheatre that stops conversation.

The Clarence and Richmond Rivers wind through flood plains of extraordinary fertility — banana plantations, macadamia orchards and sugar cane giving the inland a lush, tropical quality distinct from the rest of NSW. Yamba, at the Clarence mouth, is a fishing town that the food and surf communities have quietly transformed into one of the best small-town experiences on the NSW coast — without yet losing the fishing boats or the quiet street culture.