Yamba- Pacific Hotel

We decided to go on a road trip late 2009 for a holiday, it had been many, many years since we have driven nearly up to the border.

We had a family vacation with Roger ( FIL) and Chris ( BIL) at a wonderful house in Ballina which was right on the Richmond River. The river was about 10m from the back deck. Talk about a house with a view! Not quite a pub but wonderful place to spend many hours having a few drinks, BBQ and many good conversations.







In preparing for this, I searched the north coast of NSW and found a nice looking pub at Yamba, it looked like it would be a great place to spend a few hours and also looked to have a wonderful view.
My plan on stopping into small towns on the way home started with Yamba.

We arrived about 10.30 am on the Saturday morning, we drove straight to the point to check out the view across the Pacific Ocean. Just lovely! We looked back and there sitting on the cliff overlooking the beach was the Pacific Hotel. We had quickly found what we were looking for. We drove around and walked into the pub. A pub can be just a pub or a pub can be more, this was much more. We walked over to the window and the view was amazing even though it was a little cloudy.



There is no balcony to sit on, the small balcony is for those requiring a quick puff of their smoke however all the tables are lined up across the front of the pub facing the ocean.

How good was this? I had my perfect view!

I checked with the owner and all the rooms were booked, so we quickly went back to the point, found a lovely motel with a very well priced room, parked the car and walked back to the Pacific Hotel. On the way, we passed a very nice looking restaurant and booked in for 7pm that evening.

It was now 11.30am by this time and it certainly looked like we had found our place for the day.
We chose a table right near the windows so I could look at my view to my hearts content. The beer tasted pretty bloody good also!

The pub quickly filled with patrons, many we found out were coming from all around for a wedding at the lighthouse and the reception down at the surf club. I really hoped the weather would improve for the bride.

Mid afternoon we had lunch, they have a very nice bistro and the prices are probably a little on the higher than average for the bistro but the meals were very generous. The wine by this time was tasting exceptionally good!

From time to time I would pop out on the balcony to get another shot of the view. The clouds vanished and the sun came out, perfect wedding weather. Check my photo below looking north, looks even better in the canvas I had made.


The south view down to the beach was just as nice!

What great day, great pub, great atmosphere and then something unexpected happened. My beautiful view was suddenly filled with two hangliders having a wonderful time. They soared from the lighthouse to the left to over the beach to our right. How lovely they looked. As they passed only a few metres from where we were sitting I was able to get a few good shots.

There you have it, a great pub with an exceptional view and built in entertainment also. We stumbled out about 6.30pm had dinner at a restaurant we don't remember what the heck it was called and slept until morning to see what the next day will bring as we headed south for more places to visit.