The on-site camp kitchen became our second living room within an hour of arriving. With two BBQs, an oven and cooktop, microwave, fridge and decent prep space, it suits a quick snag-and-salad night just as well as a slow Sunday roast with the river breeze drifting in. We loved that fellow campers naturally drifted between tables here, comparing fishing notes and swapping tips on where the whiting were running.

A short stroll up the hill gets you to the Red Rock General Store for milk, bait, ice and the kind of friendly chatter that makes a small coastal village feel instantly familiar. Grab a meat pie and a paddle pop and take it down to the headland, it is a no fuss, no fanfare ritual that we repeated more times than we should admit. The shop is also your last stop for any forgotten essentials before you settle in, since Red Rock has no town water and the next supermarket is a fair drive away.

Five minutes south, The Corindi Beach Hotel is the dependable local for a proper sit down meal. We rolled in for schnitzel night and ended up staying for live music in the beer garden, with the sea breeze and a parma the size of a dinner plate making for a very easy evening. They serve breakfast through to dinner seven days, so it is a handy fallback when the camp kitchen feels like too much effort.

For a bigger café fix, point the car twenty minutes south to Woolgoolga. Bluebottles Brasserie sits right on the beach and we lingered over their king prawn and papaya salad as surfers carved up the break out front. A few streets back, Ground Earth Cafe does the kind of slow brunch that ruins you for instant coffee back at the park. We stopped in on a Sunday and the queue out the door tells you everything you need to know.

The river mouth right beside the park is the headline act. We pulled the kayaks straight off the roof and were paddling through mangroves and clear sandy shallows within minutes, spotting cormorants, sea eagles and the odd flathead shadow gliding under the boat. The boat ramp on site makes launches painless, and the kids barely came out of the estuary all weekend. If you would rather drop a line, the Corindi River estuary is famous for whiting, flathead, bream and mullet, and the headland gives you a steady rock-fishing option when the gutters are firing.

The big draw for walkers is the Yuraygir Coastal Walk, a 65km coastal traverse that begins (or ends) right here in Red Rock and stretches all the way north to Angourie. You can chip away at it in day-sized bites, and our favourite was the southern leg from the Red Rock headland past Pebbly Beach, with empty sand, wildflowers in spring and not another soul in sight. Heading the other way, the Solitary Islands Coastal Walk winds 60km south through Woolgoolga and Sawtell, again easily broken into half-day stretches.

Between June and October, the headland turns into one of the best free shows on the coast as humpbacks track north and then south on their migration. We packed sandwiches, perched on the rocks and watched a mother and calf breach repeatedly within an hour. Year round, dolphins are a near daily sighting and the birdwatching is brilliant, with little terns and white-bellied sea eagles working the river mouth.

A ten minute drive south takes you to Arrawarra, where the Arrawarra Aboriginal Fish Traps are visible at low tide and tell a thousands-of-years-old story of Gumbaynggirr custodianship. To go deeper, book a Wajaana Yaam Gumbaynggirr Adventure Tour for a guided cultural paddle on Country, or head inland to the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Corindi for art, bush tucker walks and weaving workshops.

If the kids start asking for a bigger day out, Coffs Harbour is just thirty-five minutes south and home to the Big Banana Fun Park, the Dolphin Marine Conservation Park and a string of family-friendly beaches. We treated it as our rainy-day backup and ended up making a full day of it, water slides and all.