Budjalung National Park

If you enjoy holidaying on the water, you’ll love Bundjalung’s combination of river, beach and freshwater lagoons. This north coast park stretches north from Iluka to Evans Head with the Pacific Ocean as its eastern boundary.

Spend a day canoeing along Evans River or Jerusalem Creek, mountain biking the Macaulays Lead or Serendipity fire trail, or walking along Ten Mile Beach. There are also boat launching facilities, snorkelling on the shallow reefs and fishing.

If you’d like to spend longer exploring, head to one of the beachside campgrounds in the park, or book into one of the Woody Head cabins. In the evening enjoy a barbecue dinner before gathering around the campfire with a local Bundjalung guide to listen to stories of their culture, values and connections to this park.

An ancient landscape

The Traditional Owners and Custodians of the Bandjalung People have lived in the area for thousands of years and share a traditional knowledge of the landscape of the parks, their resources and the locations of places of mythological and spiritual significance. They invite you relax, enjoy the scenery, take photos and hear stories and legends from the Dreamtime. Take an Aboriginal heritage tour for a peek into the mystery of the people and ancient landscape of the area. If you’re on your own, you can visit Gummigurrah, an area that was used as a winter camping ground by the Bandjalung People.

This park is one of a group where the Bandjalang People's native title rights have been recognised in only the third determination of native title rights in New South Wales. Native title rights come from the Bandjalang People's traditional laws and customs and legally recognise the Bandjalang People's connection to Country. This means that these lands will continue to be places of ceremony, learning and inspiration for generations to come. 

Meet the locals

The varied habitat of Bundjalung National Park is home to over 140 species of fauna. Wake to the morning melodies of eastern whip-birds, bower birds and the rare barred cuckoo-shrike. At dawn and dusk, you might find eastern grey kangaroos, red-necked wallabies and swamp wallabies congregating around your campsites. Scour the tops of nearby trees and you might also catch a glimpse of a sleeping koala or two.

Water world

Bundjalung protects a variety of environments that feature water, including beaches, rivers, wetlands and lagoons. You’ll find different types of plants, animals and birds in each one; look for coast banksia, coast she-oak and coastal wattle on the dunes that back onto the beach. Immerse yourself in this world by canoeing the waterways, rambling in the rock pools and swimming in the ocean.

Welcome to country

When you visit Bundjalung National Park and Iluka Nature Reserve, you are within the traditional homelands of the Bundjalung band Yaegl Nations. In caring for these lands, we show our respect for elders past and present and their strong spiritual and cultural connection to this Country.

Vast heathland plains, mangrove mudflats, sandy beaches and the rocky headlands of the Iluka Penninsula make Bundjalung National Park a coastal treasure. Bundjalung, together with Iluka Nature Reserve and Yuraygir and Broadwater national parks, make up the largest stretch of protected coastline in New South Wales.

Bundjalung supports the endangered coastal Emu and the marine interface provides breeding grounds for the bright red-beaked Pied Oystercatchers.

At the centre of the park is the Bundjalung Wilderness Area. Nestled upon a large sandplain, it supports magnificent heaths, wetlands, lagoons and the Esk River - the longest undisturbed coastal river system in New South Wales.

Iluka Nature Reserve, a World Heritage Gondwana rainforest, is a small but valuable remnant of what was once an extensive coastal rainforest. Home to a suburb range of birdlife including the White-eared Monarch and the rare Barred Cuckoo-shrike. lkuka Nature Reserve contains the largest remaining stand of littoral “by the sea” rainforest in New South Wales and is a World Heritage listed Gondwana rainforest.

Rich and diverse, it is an ecosystem adapted to a harsh environment of salt-laden winds and poor soils. The Riberry and Broad-leaved Lillypilly forest where strangler figs, ferns, epiphytes and vines ntertwine is sheltered by protective sand dunes and salt-tolerant Tuckeroo and Banksia trees.

Home to more than 140 species of birds, the reserve is a bird watchers paradise. You might see an Eastern Whipbird as it rustles through the leaf litter or hear its call - the whip crack belongs to the male and the sharp chirps (choow choow) to the female as she responds to the males call.

Iluka Nature Reserve wasn’t always the thriving ecosystem it is today. In the early 1990’s, the reserve was doomed to encroachment by weed species and in danger of being removed from the World Heritage list. But thanks to an extraordinary group of ordinary locals who formed the Iluka Landcare and Dunecare Group and committed many years of hard work, Iluka Nature Reserve was saved. Their work still continues as they weed, replant and restore koala habitat in the reserve and at Iluka Bluff.

© State of New South Wales through the Office of Environment and Heritage

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Goanna Headland Coastline near Evans Head

Photos of Bundjalung National Park - South Evans Head to Snapper Rocks

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