The Bellingen Treehouse is a unique and very beautiful place. We booked for 3 days and wished we'd booked for at least a week. Surrounded by forest, overlooking the pristine, crystal clear river (you can look down into it from the River room and see the riverbed), miles from any traffic, it was paradise.

Curly explained things well on our arrival and we were left to our own devices - we had the whole place to ourselves and it was wonderful. The RIver Room is very large which could have been a problem as it was winter and very cold at night, but the gas heater was very effective at warming the room.

The kitchen and lounge were warmed by a log fire which was easy to get going; the kitchen is well kitted out. The bathroom and toilet is… unusual, but we got to like it. The weather was cold in the mornings and warmed up quickly during the day - perfect!

There's a 10 kilometre drive to Bellingen, a small, very attractive country town with an interesting character… perhaps described as a little bit hippy, a lot more traditional country town. We noticed that there were no overweight people in Bellingen, the opposite of the situation in Coffs Harbour. The local pub, The Federal has excellent food at reasonable prices. There's another restaurant in Bellingen called "No.2 Oak Street" which has starred in the SMH Good Food Guide for 11 years now, but unfortunately we didn't have time to go there. Plus you must book in advance.

There seemed to be so much to do in the Bellingen area, but we'd only booked 3 days and had already booked other places ahead, but we hope to stay there again on our way back to Sydney in a month or two.