Coffs Coast is 30 degrees south of the equator. Winters are cool and mild. Summers balmy and warm. Rainfall is more in summer, less in winter. Maximum temperatures range from 19 C in July to 27C in January. Idyllic sub-tropical climate. Perfect year round for holidays with partners, family and friends.
It is the perfect place to discover sub tropical flora.
Four places where you can easily 'go sub tropical' are
Bongil Bongil National Park,
Sherwood Nature Reserve,
Dorrigo National Park and World Heritage Area and
Bruxner Park Flora Reserve.
These parks and reserves host flora that varies from coastal littoral rainforest, to lowland rainforest to escarpment sub-tropical rainforest.
Bongil Bongil National Park is home to the Bundageree Rainforest Walk. It is through a coastal forest that runs parallel to the shoreline at Tuckers Knob, south of Sawtell. It's easily accessible by car and takes about 2 hours to walk. Discover the littoral rainforest eucalypts and vines that embrace one another just beyond the beach.
Sherwood Nature Reserve is ten minutes by car from Woolgoolga. This is rare lowland rainforest. From the car park and picnic ground, walk along the forest trail beside exotic sub tropical vegetation. There's quandong and strangler figs, elkhorns and hoop pine, rusty plum and booyong. And a luxuriant understory of vines, creepers and ferns.
The World Heritage Area of Dorrigo National Park is escarpment rainforest. It's watered by moist winds that rise from the coast to the 700m plateau and escarpment. There are walking trails under towering coachwood, sassafras and crabapple. On the forest floor are buttressed tree roots, woody vines, epiphytes and ferns. Above, on the elevated Skywalk, you look down to these treetops. It's a vista of forests and farm fields all the way to the coast.
Bruxner Park Flora Reserve is in the hills, a ten minute drive from Coffs Harbour city centre. The sub-tropical flora is of tall eucalypts: blackbutt, turpentine, blue gum and Flooded Gums up to 65 metres tall. There are trails and tracks to wander from a few minutes to all day.
There are more places to discover. You will find these detailed on the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service website. Go to the NPWS website then click on 'Hunter & Mid North Coast'.
Now back to Bruxner Park. At Sealy Lookout (alt 300metres) the views are north and south along Coffs Coast and out to the Solitary Islands Marine Park where the environment changes from sub tropical to sub marine.