Reflections on Iluka

It seems hardly believable, but our week at Iluka has come to an end. It's really gone quickly.

Iluka prides itself on having the best fishing for miles around, but I think the fishing might have been on the slide (and no, I don't base that on my own inability to catch a fish, however tempting that might be). We took a drive to the local fish co-op the other day, which is situated where al the local trawlers dock, and is well renowned for having the best fish for miles around. When we got there, there were only 5 types of fish available. 2 types of perch, flathead, whiting, and flake/shark. Only the flathead and whiting were locally caught - the perch came from Queensland and Vietnam (!!) respectively, and the flake came from Victoria. This seemed really odd to me, that the local fishing industry, can't catch enough fish to supply the local co-op. Is the local industry fished out? Or is the co-op just crap these days? Who can tell, but I was disappointed I can tell you. On the upside, I got me some local prawns which, while small, were pretty good.

I went for a walk by myself yesterday to get away from everyone/everything for a couple of hours and get some exercise into me. I ended up walking the Iluka World Heritage Rainforest Walk - 2.5km of bush track through the rainforest just behind the dunes. It was really nice, and although I didn't see much in the way of wildlife, the sounds and the smells of the rainforest are truly unique. While it's not as lush as your typical rainforest, it's unique in that it's so close to the beach, and as such has different plants and animals to most other forests around the place. At the end of the walk, you end up at Iluka Bluff (shown in picture) which is a really interesting rock formation at the headland. From the top you can see for miles in all directions - definitely worth the climb.



From there I decided to walk along the beach back to the rock wall (the entrance to the Clarence river, with Yamba on the other side), which is around 4km. This was awesome - not another soul on the beach for the entire journey, a nice wide beach to walk along, the wind and waves to your left, the beach, dunes and rainforest on your right, and really soft, fine grained sand underneath your feet. Although I haven't walked that far for a long time, it was a real highlight for me. Although I'm not a big beach swimmer, I love the ocean - there's something so primitive and wild about it.

Grace has been sleeping better lately, but last night was an exception. She woke at 4.30am and simply would not go back to sleep - so I resorted to the "driving bub to sleep" trick. We went and explored Maclean, which is a beautiful little town just down the highway. It's situated on the broadwater - a wide part of the river that's really pretty. The town was apparently founded by Scottish immigrants, and they hold onto that heritage fiercely - all the town's telegraph poles are painted in different tartan designs of all the different clans, and many of the shops are Scottish in some way or another. Ever wondered where to buy haggis? Wonder no more. Anyhow, Grace just about got to sleep in the car as we got to Maclean, when something woke her, and she didn't get back to sleep at all - so we had what turned out to be a nice drive at dawn, just the two of us. It was sweet, but I really would have preferred to do it when I was more awake :)

We have enjoyed staying here at Iluka, but are looking forward to heading on to Emerald Beach tomorrow. Emerald Beach is just out of Coffs Harbour. It's about a 2 hour drive at our travel speed, so no massive journeys this time around. Hooray!