Crescent Head Country Club (upon entry, as is commonplace at such venues in Australia, you’ll need to sign in at the front desk as a guest or purchase a membership) is possibly the best ocean view for the price of a schooner in New South Wales; grab a crisp, cold beer and a plate for the daily pork carvery, then snag a table overlooking the adjacent bowling green and crashing waves beyond. The club is also home to the free-to-the-public six-hole golf course, which extends all the way to the headland: Take the pedestrian walk to the top and you’ll be greeted with exceptional views and seasonal whalewatching, as well as a view of the community mosaic that wraps around two water towers at the top. There’s also lawn bowls and a new minigolf course, which can be played by the hour.
Where to eat
For brekkie, line up with the locals to grab a cuppa and a bagel at Blackfish Coffee, which has been a staple here for a decade, or settle in for ham-and-cheese croissants at the Green Room, right on the corner, which also serves an ever-changing menu of international street food on Friday nights. The latter has a DIY mural on one wall, so you can pick up a stub of chalk and add your flair. Point Break Cafe at the Crescent Head Surf Lifesavers Club has views that can’t be beat, with open-air seating facing the rolling waves—it’ll give you just about the same perspective as the beach’s hardworking surf-lifesavers.
Barnett’s Bakery, right on Main Street, is an institution; it gets so busy that there’s a queuing system inside to make sure every order for lamb-and-rosemary pies and vanilla cream-filled chocolate eclairs is addressed. Grab one pastry for now and one for later, and you’ll still regret you didn’t snag a few more.
There are 15 kinds of margaritas on offer at the weekend-only La Costa Cantina at The Med Hotel, best paired with calamari tacos and barramundi ceviche. Down the end of Maria River Road, a bumpy ride 15 minutes just out of downtown Creso, Maria River Distillery produces exceptional limoncello, mandarincello, and blood orangecello on a 300-acre operating commercial Angus farm. Wave at the cabernet-colored calves and their protective mothers as you peel down the leafy London plane-lined gravel driveway, then settle in for a tasting of the crisp, chilled liqueurs and—if you book in advance—a platter of cured meats.
A new place to stay
A lush surfer’s paradise of exposed timber and halcyon-inspired art, Sea Sea Hotel opened in November on the footprint of a former all-brick 24-room motel. The design-focused team have kept the rooms true to their nostalgic form, revamping studios with full-length sliding doors out to landscaped patios; in-room speakers set to the funky house radio station, curated by Wesley Herron; and sumptuous house-designed body products that smell like a petrichor-motivated frangipani blossom. (Use them when you’re showering beneath the rain shower head in the green-tiled bathroom, the shade of which reflects the lush tones of nearby Goolawah National Park.)