Northern Central Coast, New South Wales is blessed with the lot from stunning coastline, pretty towns, sub-tropical rainforest, rolling countryside as well as rivers, lakes and scenic drives. One such scenic drive not to be missed is the Waterfall Way, a 191 km touring route starting from the Coffs Coast on the Pacific Highway and winds its way inland through the beautiful tablelands of the New England region. The spectacular landscape changes from national parks, lush rainforest and countryside to wide open plains. Along the way there are plenty of natural attractions from elevated board walks in Dorrigo National Park allowing you to see the beauty and wildlife of the sub-tropical rainforest to a number of tumbling waterfalls that give the touring route its name.
As you leave the coast you will snake your way up through lush subtropical rainforest and pass by road side waterfalls.
The quaint laid-back picturesque town of Bellingen will be your first stop and has a good selection of cafe’s, restaurants and rich architectural heritage as well as a good range of accommodation options. Its quaintness, historical architecture and rural charm makes Bellingen my favourite out of the three towns we pass through.
Continuing along the route and about 25 minutes from Bellingen is Dorrigo National Park where you can visit the rainforest centre and enjoy many of the parks walks including the Skywalk Lookout.
The small town of Dorrigo will be your next stop, in my opinion it’s not as pretty as Bellingen but does have a couple of points of interest including the first of the many big waterfalls you will see along the route.
Dangar Falls is 1.2 kilometres north of the town and is a popular photographic subject. Its also possible to swim in the upper part of the falls which we have done in the past and was quite refreshing!
The steam railway museum lies just on the edge of town, it is not open to the public but its carriages dating from the 1800’s are pretty photogenic. It’s a pity we couldn’t get past the fence as there is some very interesting subjects that I would have loved to have photographed. Lucky enough Vaughan is tall so could stretch the camera over the top of the fence to grab some shots!
As you leave town and head towards Armidale the landscape opens up to farmland flanked by New England National Park.
You will pass through the small hamlet of Ebor before turning off to Guy Fawkes River National Park to visit the second of the major waterfalls – Ebor Falls. There are two sets of falls, upper and lower falls and three lookout platforms along the edge of the gorge to give you spectacular views of upper falls, lower falls and a view of the valley.
A walking track through mossy covered eucalypt forest links both the falls.
A few kilometres further on brings you to the small village of Wollomombi where you turn off towards Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. Wollomombi Falls located close to the campground and picnic area, is a 220 meter falls that cascade over a cliff into the gorge below. We enjoyed these falls, we thought they were quite dramatic and I would love to have found my way down to the plunge pool beneath the falls!
Bakers Creek Falls are located at the head of the Metz Gorge 20 kilometres east of Armidale so we called in here before reaching town. The falls are a series of cascades and compared to the previous falls we had just seen were a little underwhelming.
Armidale is quite a sizeable town and it’s where we picked up some fast food picnic lunch before heading out to the picnic ground at Dangar Gorge Falls. The falls had three viewpoints but the best was from the viewing platform close to the picnic shelter, here you could view the falls head on. The other viewpoints you could only see the top of the falls and the platforms were a little bit of a hike to get to. Still the views over the gorge were lovely and so was the walks to the platforms.
Allow a day to enjoy this scenic drive and take in all the waterfalls. Even better stay at one of the many accommodation options along the way. Armidale has an excellent caravan park (if you happen to find a grey checked hat then please feel free to post it back to me ;-)) and there is some lovely places to stay in Bellingen. There is plenty to see and do including ample walking tracks in New England, Cathedral Rock and Dorrigo National Parks.
We had gone up for the day with family as they lived close to Nambucca Heads but one of these days we would like to pitch a tent in one of the National Parks so we can enjoy the nature of the Australian bush and the walking tracks.
If you want more information on the area then check out the excellent visit Destination NSW website.
If you have enjoyed the photos and would like to see more! then the complete gallery can be viewed in the Trip Photos
Definitely putting this into my bucket list of to do’s. Thanks for sharing.
I’m happy you enjoyed the read. Its a wonderful roadtrip I think you will ver much enjoy it.
Beautiful! I loved Australia when I was there way back in the 90s. Wish I were rich enough to take my family there!
Yes it is a lovely part of the world, very green where most of OZ is brown! OZ is quite expensive to travel these days, the best and cheapest way is to have a campervan, there is some amazing national parks to camp in too 🙂
Looks like a great trip!! I love the New England Park- it does look just like New England- very funny!
I’ve always wanted to go to New England in the US especially during Autumn, the photos I’ve seen look amazing. Most of OZ is dry so its nice to see the lush green parts 🙂