Brooke Hanson's Coffs Harbour Adventure

Achieving Olympic success was memorable, but now as a mum with an active family, my goal is to share golden moments with them. Disconnecting to reconnect is so important to us and we look forward to sharing our travels with you.

Meet our family

I’m Brooke Hanson - Olympic Gold and Silver medallist in swimming, motivational speaker and mentor. My husband, and fellow swimmer is Jared Clarke -he’s a firefighter and the captain of our adventures. Joining us for our fun filled ride are our very active children; Cooper 12, Billy 8 and Matilda 6. We go away for short trips and longer journeys and are always inspired to live our lives to the fullest, with more happiness and purpose in memory of our late son and brother Jack Hanson Clarke. He is our brightest star in the sky.

Our family loves caravanning and camping, and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to be ambassadors for Apollo RV Sales, taking different caravans on adventures around Australia.

Holidays are so much fun, making memories no matter what the weather. Rain, hail or shine each day brings a new adventure and as a family we cherish every moment we have together. We love nothing more than hitting the road with no plans and having quality family time doing what we love; surfing, swimming, fishing, building sandcastles, bike riding, picnics, experiencing incredible sunrise and sunsets and enjoying the freedom to just BE.

Growing up I spent every summer having fun in and around the water with my family, playing and having fun in the ocean, pool, creeks, and dams. Raising a family of my own, now our adventures are so similar to my up bringing and I’m so fortunate that we all love the water and spending time exploring the great outdoors.

Our Coromal Adventure

Our first adventure for Apollo RV Sales was in the Coromal Adventure Seeker. So, we decided to travel from the Gold Coast to Coffs Harbour.

I call Coffs Harbour my second home, as it’s where my family is from and where I’ve been holidaying my entire life. It offers so much, from the beautiful beaches with some of the best surf breaks in Australia, to the lush hinterland.

The climate is a big seller and makes it a spot where you can park your caravan all year round. With Park Beach, the Jetty foreshores and Coffs Harbour Marina all within walking distance of each other, getting around is easy.

We left our home on the Gold Coast at 1.30pm making a stop for the toilet and some yoga stretching at the Pine Brush rest Area – Southbound – on the Pacific Hwy, Tucabia. This is a great rest area as there are plenty of parks no matter the size of your caravan, and there are tables if you want to stop and have a longer rest with a sandwich and cuppa.

We continued onto Coffs Harbour, arriving at the caravan park only 3hrs after we left home – the new highway makes travel times so short! We set up in record breaking time. Yes, we are all very competitive and couldn’t believe the ease of the setup.

The Coromal Adventure Seeker was perfect for us. It had a queen size east to west bed, double bunks, full fridge and freezer, toilet, shower, washing machine, gas and electric cooking, and plenty of storage inside and out. We loved the extra wide opening of the tunnel boot for added storage for all our outdoor furniture, fishing rods, scooters, balls, cricket set and beach gazebo. There were also large gas bottles that came in handy for our cooking and a comfortable lounge big enough for the 5 of us with a table to make dining inside easy when the storms set in.

We have a pre-teen who is after his own space, so Cooper prefered sleeping outside in his swag under the awning. He enjoyed staying up later with his folks to play cards, but the van still had space for us to put a self-inflating mattress on the floor if he needed to move inside.

During our time away we had a mixture of weather, with more overcast and rainy days than sunshine. So we spent a lot more time in the van and under the awning than we normally would. We loved playing cards, Connect 4, snakes and ladders, drawing, reading books and listening to tunes. In the end that is what our holidays are all about, relaxing and reconnecting without any electronic devices.

Coffs Harbour

Whilst holidaying in Coffs Harbour, here were a few of our family's favourite things to do;

• Jetty jumping off Coffs Jetty
• Swimming, snorkelling and stand-up paddle boarding at Jetty Beach
• Floating down Coffs Creek with the tide
• Pumping yabbies and then fishing at the mouth of Coffs Creek
• Surfing at Diggers Beach
• Hitting the The Hoey Moey (an iconic pub) for some live music and a meal
• Walking along the Northern Break Wall to Mutton Bird Island

The local tourist spots are all great too; the Big Banana, Dolphin Marine Magic, Forest Sky Pier at Sealy lookout, Treetops Adventure Park, Bruxner Park Flora Reserve for a picnic and Gumgali Track walking trails to Korora lookout.

We also recommend you take a day trip to any of these places; Boambee Creek, Sawtell, Bellingen, Dorrigo, Moonee Beach, Red Rock, Woolgoolga, Emerald Beach, Sapphire Beach, Mylestom, Urunga, Nambucca, Coramba, Nana Glen or head further south to one of our favourite spots Crescent Head.

During our adventure we took a day trip to Crescent Head. There’s an opening from the ocean to Killick Creek, which at high tide is great for floating on your back or swimming against the tide. I lost count of the number of times the kids and I floated down then ran back before heading out for a few waves on the point.

Killick Beach is one of Australia’s National Surfing Reserves – it’s famous for its long, slow right-hand point break. We love that Crescent Head has something for all ages and surfing abilities. If surfing is not your thing, the fishing is great and from our experience the flat heads are plentiful. If you haven’t heard it from other travellers, you’ve heard it from us - the bakery is one of the best in the country!

We are frequent visitors to the Coffs Coast, we love it so much because we can always find something new to explore and enjoy each time we visit. If you haven’t put Coffs on your list yet make sure you do, we promise you won’t be disappointed.

Looking forward to sharing more of our travels.

Brooke and Family x