Day 11 Thursday 18/6/2026, Grafton to Murwillumbah, sunny 8 – 22

After a cool night we have a bright sunny morning to pack up. We take the old highway through the village of Ulmarra and follow the wide Clarence River. The river is as smooth as glass this morning, I spot a perfect dewy cobweb on a fence. But it’s not all cow paddocks around here as Ulmarra is where the sugar cane starts and it’ll soon be as high as a single storey house. Purple bougainvillea drapes houses and vines threaten to envelop sheds. We pick up the M1 again and it’s an easy drive up to the Ballina interchange.

Thick forests give way to sugar, then macadamia orchards. The BP stop is like walking back into the city – cars, people and loud music. The highway rolls on through the back of Byron Bay. Idyllic countryside, rolling hills with more of the same vegetation and attractive road tunnels. That’s right, attractive, as they are covered in bushland giving the wildlife safe passage. There are glimpses of the Pacific Ocean, stands of Bamboo and tall hoop pines.

We check in at the Murwillumbah Showgrounds and it’s good to see that the caretakers are the ones that were here last year. They’ve had a lot of rain of late and the sites are damp making site allocation for the managers as strategic as a game of chess. They send us off with “Oh and don’t get a fright there’s a python in the toilet ceiling, he won’t hurt he’s just hanging around”.

Accom: $35.00

Towing kms: 212kms