Illaroo Camp ground, Yuraygir National Park - 7th to 14th of March

A trip to Illaroo has become one of our annual camping destinations, we normally try and visit in April backing onto Easter or Anzac Day long weekends. This year we decided to travel down a little earlier as we were concerned about not getting a spot, Easter falls in the school holidays this year and the QLD and NSW school holiday line up together. On our last 2 trips we have arrived to claim the very last available spot and didn’t want to travel 5 hours to miss out so we thought we would pull the kids out of school for a week and visit in a “quieter” time…

We left home on Saturday morning at 4.30am and hit the road, the trip went quickly with one coffee and toilet break on the way. We expected to arrive to an almost empty camp ground and we were shocked to see 75% of the sites occupied… We found a spot that looked nice and started our set up, by lunch time we were finished and ready to relax. We had great weather for most of the time we were there with light coastal breezes, warm days and only a couple of showers and evening storms. Mornings and afternoons were spent on the beach swimming, soaking up the sun, shell collecting  and exploring the rock pools.

Over the week most of our neighbours (mainly grey nomads and back packers) came and went and we were surprised at how popular this spot was during the week outside of school holidays.  As it happens our week stay came to an end too quickly and unfortunately the rain set in on Friday afternoon and evening just in time for the arrival of the weekend campers. On our finally morning we were greeted overcast conditions and a few showers, we held out as long as we could but we had to pack up a damp camper to ensure we didn’t leave too late. On the drive home we decided to take a detour out to Black Rocks camp ground in the Bundjalung National Park which added an hour or so to the journey. We were glad we took the time to check it out as we enjoyed our brief visit and have pencilled it in as a future destination on the North Coast of NSW. After leaving Black Rocks we had an uneventful 3.5 hour drive home to set up and dry out the camper and unpack the car.

We had a great time chilling out at Illaroo and learned that there really isn’t a quieter time at Illaroo as its very popular, some of the locals suggested a winter visit is the way to go but we like it here when its warm so we can enjoy the beach.

Trip Distance = 839km

Total distance travelled with camper = 16,332km

Total number of nights in the camper = 113