FF Tour - Days 13 to 15, Evans Head

Lennox Head

In no hurry - an increasingly recurrent theme of the last five or so years of our touring - we left Byron along the coastal road which parallels Seven Mile Beach to the south, stopping for a few hours in Lennox Head.

With a lack of suitable parking along the main drag, we parked one street back from the beach, where there was plenty of space on a residential street. The first order of business was to track down the pharmacy and secure a 4th Covid booster. News reports in the previous few days had contained cautionary tales from clever looking bods in white coats, suggesting that another Covid spike was looming and a new booster was now available. As I qualified thanks to birthdays, we had rung the help line and they had lined up a vaccination in Evans Head.

The pharmacist was a locum, somewhat laissez faire in attitude, dress code and willingness to answer questions or follow protocols, which quickly led to my loss of confidence. With all of those elements seemingly rather loose, I wasn't going to trust my arm to this guy, especially given a previous mistake by the doctors I trusted back home. I passed but Sue, ever the opportunist, used his broad interpretation of the rules to secure a booster for herself, despite not being aged appropriate to the latest ATAGI announcement. We "discussed" the pros and cons over coffee, the upshot of which was she went off for the booster and I wandered to the beach to await news of her demise.

The paragliders were again operating off the headline and I spend a half hour watching them swoop and glide over a fair range of the southern part of Lennox Head. The view must be stunning, especially as it was another cracker of a day.

I took Sue for a makeup, recovery ice cream and then we had another splendid fish and chip lunch at Fishy Fishy. It was probably even better than on a previous trip.

With less than 50 kms to go, we took the easy drive down the M1, taking the off ramp at Broadwater and then along the access road straight to Evans Head. Having made our booking as we traveled north, arrival and booking in was a breeze. I took great delight in backing into a slightly tricky, angled site, in one fluid turn and reverse, aided as ever by Sue at the back of the site speaking via the mobile phone. Its something we team up on with a pretty easy expertise these days. If reversing cameras make hitching easy, then mobile phones and an informed assistant, make parking a doddle.

A short wander during the late afternoon oriented us to our surroundings and a Guinness at the art deco Illawarra Hotel closed out the afternoon.

On our first full day in Evans Head, we drove across the Evans River along Ocean Drive and up to the impressive Dirawong Reserve and picnic area. Also known as Goanna Headland, as the Dirawong was the Goanna spirit being of the Bundjalung Dreamtime. Some of the older locals still refer to the headland by its whitefella name of Razorback. The area's more recent development was as a result of it being chosen as a observation post and base station for Maritime Rescue NSW. There is an excellent walking trail which traverses this section of the coast, although we didn't avail ourselves of it. Like many places such places, it has a terrible history, as 100 Aboriginal men, women and children were herded up onto the headland by settlers and massacred. Only two small children survived. Sailors from two schooners, anchored in the bay below the headland, joined in the killing.

The gorgeous Dirawong Reserve

Such atrocities are hard to imagine in what is today such a beautiful spot. Sweeping views to the north expose the far extremities of Mount Warning and the Border Ranges beyond and Evans Head, Broadwater and Patches beaches stretched of into the distance to Ballina. 

Returning across the Evans River, we had a coffee back in the main street and then walked 100 metres down to a sheltered space behind the river to the Living Museum. Housed in what was the original school building, after it was moved from the main road through town, this is a little gem. Well curated - regular readers will know that is a common bugbear of mine - it is brimming with local history which, if you are lucky, is coloured by local volunteers. We spent an hour listening as the artifacts were bought to life and populated by the lives of locals during the last century. Evans Head was the origin of the prawning industry in NSW and our guide and her husband had been leading fishermen in the area. Such was their expertise that they gave new meaning to the proverb of "give a man to fish and you feed him today: teach a man to fish and you feed him for ever". They traveled all over the world, teaching underdeveloped communities how to use previously untapped ocean resources to feed themselves.

The history of the airbase that was a training ground for navigators during and after WWII is well documented and represented in uniforms and photographs. It was the characters our guides illuminated that we found enthralling.

The Illawarra Hotel called us to again enjoy a Guinness. It would have been rude to ignore the invitation.

The morning of the second day started with a return to the Sandpit Cafe in the morning, visited on our way north (FF Tour, Days 7-9), after which we drove to the local airport and the Evans Head Heritage Aviation Museum and its amazing collection of restored aircraft. Staffed and maintained by a volunteer workforce, this is an exemplar of the passion people can extoll on the things they love. Without doubt, the star attraction is an F-111C fighter bomber, decommissioned from the RAAF and donated and flown to Evans Head by RAAF pilots. They have a long history of Evans Head, not only because it was previously a base but because of the air weapons range located to the south of Evans Head township and off the coast. 

Decorated in its camouflage livery and accompanied by lots of hour soaking information, this F-111C is one of the very best display aircraft I have seen. There is also a Canberra bomber and Caribou transport plane which did service in Vietnam, where its ability to land and take off on truncated spaces, made it a superior vehicle, especially with Australian pilots. You can walk right on board and up into the cockpit! There is also a Mig-15 and a Bell Kiowa chopper  and much more. The incredibly rare Fieseler Fi103R Reichenberg ... otherwise known as a version of the V1 buzz bomb or doodle bug which terrorised London is here but what is unique about this version is it was intended to be flown by a pilot on a suicide mission to give greater accuracy in targeting. Luckily, the program was abandoned by the Germans before it really got going.

Fascinating place, not the least because of the video programs which play on continuous loops. I watched one about an RAAF pilot and his exploits in England, Nova Scotia, New York, the Pacific and finally his return home during the first half of the 1940's. 

Click to see today's photos

We could not recommend this museum highly enough. Definitely a must see if you are in the area.

The afternoon became stormy and as it threatened from the south west, we hunkered down in the van but were lucky when the worst of it split two ways, south and north of us and delivered only loud thunderclaps and a couple of minutes of heavy rain. 

Lovely spot Evans Head and one to return to.