Tenterfield

 26 - 29 September 2025

Our stay in Port Macquarie had been fabulous - spending time with friends, and a pelagic boat trip for Mick. The weather had been great too! It was now time to turn north and start heading back towards North Queensland. We wanted to stop in Tenterfield but weren't sure whether we'd get there in one go, or whether we might stop somewhere along way, so we set the GPS for Tenterfield and headed off.

There are a number of ways we could go, but we decided on the Gwydir Highway via Grafton. We drove north on the motorway, back through Coffs Harbour, then turned off towards Grafton. We found a rest area to make a cup of coffee, then continued to Grafton and on through the mountains.

We stopped at Hills Lookout, then continued on to Gibraltar Range Picnic Area where we had lunch. Our next stop was Raspberry Lookout which had fabulous views over the Gibraltar Range and beyond. We drove in to Washpool National Park to have a look at the campground but were put off when we saw people with unrestrained dogs in the picnic area. Dogs are not permitted and  this is one of the reasons we like camping in National Parks so much. Once we reached the top of the range we decided that we could easily get to Tenterfield so stopped in Deepwater and called ahead as we knew we would be arriving quite late.

Quite a view from Raspberry Lookout

We made it into Tenterfield late in the day and settled in to the caravan park, only to discover that our power lead was not working. It was bad timing as we had just spent two nights with a licenced electrician who might have been able to fix it for us, but without his expertise we had to buy a new one. I made it to the local hardware store with only minutes to go before closing. Uusually we would be fine without power but a very cold night was forecast and we knew we would need the heater. With an overnight temperature of 0.2°C we were glad I'd made the mad dash into town.

Mick has access to a private property that is well set up for birding just out of town, so he headed out early in the morning for a session. On his return we headed into town to do some shopping and have a look around. We had planned to stay only two nights but decided to stay and extra one, giving Mick a few more opportunities to visit one of his favourite spots. 

We had wanted to stay in Girraween National Park again but it was fully booked so we researched a few more places that might suit us, without success. It was school holidays in both Queensland and New South Wales so all the popular spots were taken. We left Tenterfield and headed towards Cunnamulla - again not really sure where we would end up for the night.