Hit the road, somewhere over the Rainbow

IF you ever happen to be staying in the north-central coastline of New South Wales and you're looking for a quick road trip adventure to an off-the-beaten path destination, look no further than grabbing a hire car in Coffs Harbour and heading south along the Pacific Highway and Scott's Head road towards a beaut little place called Rainbow Beach.

The drive is a ripper with a lot of enticing attractions along the way including bigger coastal townships like Nambucca Heads, great national parks, Scott's Head lookout and some beaut fishing spots. The closer you get to Rainbow Beach, it gets a little confusing in that you have to backtrack a little and due to the route winding back into the South West Rocks area and overall it will take you between 2 and 3 hours, depending on the duration of stops along the way.

We parked the Britz camper at a quaint little holiday park called Rainbow Beach Holiday Village in a nice shady and green powered site. There are other options including spa and ocean breeze cottages, basic motel rooms and veranda bungalows if you are heading there in a hire car. The facilities hit the spot with our kids and included a swimming pool, children's playground and mini golf course, but the best comes with a short forest walk onto beautiful Rainbow Beach itself. There's a certain kind of magic about this place, it seems to be  tucked away from the rest of the world yet feels very, very open, with snaking inlets here and there and fluffy sand to kick about in on the main beach area.

In using Rainbow Beach Holiday Village as a base from to launch your nearby explorations, whether it be hiring a fishing rod and landing the catch of the day, heading for the hills and going mountain biking, checking out the waterfalls in nearby national parks, taking in a spot of whale watching (during the cool season) or heading into Port Macquarie which is only 15 minutes drive away.

Scott Podmore

Award-winning writer, editor, photographer, videographer and owner of October Grey Media. Specialising in travel and lifestyle content and a full member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers. Has contributed regular content for the NewsCorp stable of newspapers and magazines, TravelTalk mag, The Departure Lounge and many more publications in Australia and internationally. Follow on Twitter & instragram #scottpodmore

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