There is no on-site restaurant, but the BBQ areas and camp kitchen quickly become the social heart of the park come evening, with someone always tending sausages while the kids weave between picnic tables. We loved that the layout nudges you outside to cook and eat wherever the sea breeze finds you, plate balanced on a knee, sand still on your feet.

Right next door is Scotts Head Bowling and Recreation Club, known locally as Club Scotts. We wandered over on the first night for a schnitzel and a schooner and ended up booking barefoot bowls before dessert hit the table. It does honest club fare, cold beers and a sunset view that does most of the work.

In the village proper, Scotts Hub is the place locals point you to. We grabbed gourmet burgers one lunch and fresh local seafood on a return visit and rolled out happy both times. For breakfast, Driftwood Café is a family-run wholefood spot near the beach where the muesli bowls and sourdough toasts are exactly the thing after an early surf check, and the coffee is genuinely good.

If you're after something a little different, Scotts Head Pizza & Thai does a charmingly odd combo of green curries and gourmet pizzas. We ordered both, walked it back to the park, and picnicked on the headland as the lights came on along the point.

A short drive south, Valla Beach Tavern is a sunny, easy-going pub that's worth the detour for a long lazy lunch when the onshore wind keeps you off the water.

The beach is the headline act, and it begins moments from your door. Walk five minutes from the park and you are on Main Beach, that endless squeaky-sand stretch that vanishes north into the haze. We loved early dawn strolls before the holidaymakers stirred, and the kids ran themselves into a contented heap building moats and chasing the shore break.

Surfers should make a quiet pilgrimage to Scotts Head Point, the only true point break in the Nambucca region. We watched the long right-hander peel for ages before paddling out, and even then it was clear this is a wave with regulars and rhythms. If you're new to it, Scotts Head Surf School hires soft tops and runs lessons on the gentler beach breaks just around the headland.

The coastal walks above the surf club are an easy reset, with stunning ocean views, salt-bleached headland flora and constant birdlife. From May to October the same headlands turn into prime humpback whale watching territory, and on still mornings we could hear whale song carrying up off the water. Dolphins seem to be there almost daily, often in groups of a dozen or more.

Twenty minutes inland, Yarriabini National Park and the road up Mount Yarrahapinni open onto a 360 degree summit lookout that takes in rainforest, ocean and farmland in one sweep. There are short walking tracks, pebbled creeks and shady picnic spots that we ducked into on a hot afternoon for a cool down.

Nambucca Heads, fifteen minutes north, makes a great half-day. We loved pottering through the painted V-Wall rocks, calling into the Headland Historical Museum, and grabbing an ice cream before the drive home. If your stay coincides with school holidays, the village green at Scotts Head often hosts pop-up markets and family events worth checking the local noticeboard for.

We found the southern headland gives the park a lovely afternoon sea breeze that takes the edge off summer heat, and shoulder-season visits in May and September were genuinely magical with whales tracking the point and the breaks mostly to ourselves.