Smoky Cape Lighthouse - Hat Head National Park

I initially wanted to write this blog like a "track notes" with detailed directions for a day walk around the forest and coast near Smoky Cape Lighthouse, but the notes I had were years old. So, back we went, two weekends ago; spending a day roaming around the tracks and coastline north of the lighthouse. Just as well. My old track notes were nearly useless. It's amazing how nature keeps on being nature: growing, changing, moving, evolving.

Rosewood River in Dorrigo National Park cures cabin fever

A rainy weekend to end January 2013 seemed like a good time to share a trip from a couple of years ago that involved going out in the rain and the wind in the name of wilderness and avoiding cabin fever. As I write this (last weekend), a cyclone from up north is rattling the windows and whistling around the verandah ends and it’s bucketing down outside. It is reminiscent of 2010 when we had an exceptionally wet spring and summer and autumn on the North Coast of NSW. Most overused phrase of the season was ‘east coast low’ and after weeks of intermittent showers and one extended stretch of 10 days of solid rain there was nothing for it but to drag out the Gortex jackets and waterproof overpants and go for it. Forecasts at the time showed no sign of the rain letting up and Caz had come down with a murderous case of cabin fever. And when it's raining, what better place to go than the rainforest.