Our Region

      and TOURING on the MID NORTH COAST

The Three Brothers Mountains are major landscape features as you approach the beautiful Camden Haven region of the Mid North Coast. 

The towering communications mast on top of Middle Brother is visible from a great distance away. Falls Forest Retreat lies at the foot of Middle Brother at the end of Isaacs Lane, in its own private valley. 

Its forests along the eastern boundary merge with those of the National Park on the upper steep slopes of the mountain. The “Benaroon” (a local Birpai language word for blackbutt), the largest living tree in NSW, is only a 20-minute drive away in the National Park.   

The Bird Tree is a very large blackbutt tree (Eucalyptus pilularis).  Its diameter at 1.3 metres above the ground is 3.6 metres. Its total height is 69 metres and log volume is 144 cubic metres, and is well  over 200 years old.   The nearby  ‘Benaroon’ is another very large blackbutt 200 metres away and over 200 years old also, still growing strong and is the largest known tree still growing in NSW, now at 65 metres tall. Diameter  at 1.2 metres above ground is 4.10 metres.

From the lookout on the cliffs on Middle Brother above the Falls valley you can see the protected forests on the property, the cleared valley beyond, and South Brother.

Below:  South Brother Mountain  from the top of Yoorigan Falls

At North Brother Mountain, the sealed road runs to the top of the mountain and the lookouts and picnic areas on the crest have wonderful views over Laurieton and along the coast, and to the Watson Taylor’s Lake on the other side. 

The Rainforest Loop Walk from the picnic area is a not-to-be-missed 500m stroll through rainforest with more delightful views. The Brothers are volcanic rock massifs, created about 200 million years ago when what is now Australia’s Mid North Coast region was near the South Pole and part of the Gondwana Supercontinent. 

Some Great Links!

• The Orchid Lists' Rainforest Orchids Page

• Rainforest Birds at the Birds HQ website

• Palm Tree HQ Everything Palm Tree, from 10 foot lighted palm trees to Windmill palms.

Touring on the Mid North Coast 

The Retreat is within easy driving distance of the coast with its beaches, headlands and coastal wildflower reserves and National Parks. 

The Manning Valley looking south from Vincent’s Lookout

Inland, and also within easy reach are several major National Parks and many scenic drives through the cleared valleys and forested hills, with waterfalls, spectacular lookouts and their diverse vegetation and interesting rock formations . The Waitui Falls, Newby’s Caves and Lookout and Vincent’s Lookout are all worth a visit!

Crowdy Bay National Park offers half a dozen beautiful beaches between Diamond Head and Indian Head, with an excellent network of well-graded and maintained walking trails. Informative signage provides information on history of the region and some of its residents. These include the famous poet Kylie Tennant, whose book The Man on the Headland immortalises the 'hermit' of Diamond Head, while the 'hut' where she lived while writing is still there to visit.

The Kattang Nature Reserve offers 1 to 3 kilometre round-trip trails through very scenic and varied forest, scrub, grass and heath zones. 

Several Banksia species, flannel flowers, everlasting daisies, parrot peas, wedding bush and Boronia make springtime walks a delight. Pockets of subtropical rainforest along the rocky Point Perpendicular Walk provide shady contrast to the vegetation on the coastal sand trails. 5>

Birds abound – more than 100 species are recorded from this Reserve, and sea eagles enjoy the updraughts above the cliffs. Short-nosed bandicoots, ringtail possums emerge at dusk, and wallabies are often visible during daytime.

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