Roadtripping From Byron Bay
One of our favourite roadside stall journeys starts at Byron Bay. From there, head south out of town and turn right just after Broken Head onto Midgen Flat Road. Follow that until it becomes Broken Head Road about five minute later. Here you’ll find a stretch of about five roadside stalls in the space of one kilometre. I can’t be totally precise with how many stalls are there because they’re not all open all of the time and I’ve never stopped to count them. Anyway, before we get to the stalls, let’s stop for a coffee.
Zentveld's Farm & Coffee Roastery
Right about now (that is, early October) the coffee trees are flowering. We were there a couple years ago when a drought had held back the trees and the onset of rain had them all flower at the same time. The smell was amazing. The entire place had a sweet honey smell of fresh blossoms.
Not all the coffee they roast is grown right there on the plantation. They import beans from various places. You can buy their Zero Mile blend though and I can tell you it is delicious. It’s not always available but if you can get yours hands on it you should. All beans for the Zero Mile blend are grown right there on the property.
More coffee
Right next door is a roadside stall where you can buy more coffee. It’s grown and roasted on the property by a man who might be a retired farmer. I haven’t asked him but I can tell you he’s into his advanced years. Besides being a lovely man he produces some strong dark coffee and an assortment of fruit and vegetables. His is a reliable stall, nearly always having stock of coffee and other produce.
Electronic banking
The stall next to old mate’s coffee has electronic banking. The BSB and account number are listed so you can direct debit your purchases. We were there some time back and the old guy who runs the coffee stand asked how it worked. We explained that all he did was have a BSB and account, pretty simple really. Next time we visited, the coffee stall had BSB and account details also. It’s pretty handy because no-one carries as much cash as we used to. Being able to direct debit some purchases holds back some cash for all the other stalls on this route.
More stalls
Next door is a lady who sells banana’s, among other things, then a stall with gingham curtains (which they shut when the stall is empty) and a few more stalls on top of that. Below are a few random photos from Broken Head road. I’m not totally sure we’ve covered all the stalls in these photos. What I can tell you is there will just about always be half a dozen stalls to visit in this one stretch of road.
Newrybar
Newrybar is the quaintest little town with a gorgeous bakery, a restaurant and some of the most expensive shops known to man or woman. It’s only a couple hundred metres from end-to-end and has some of the most high-end shopping any of any country town in Australia. It’s definitely worth a stop. There is some delicious produce to be had in this town. I just can’t help myself from wondering who buys $400 beach umbrellas.
Fernleigh Road
From Newrybar you take Brooklet Road to Fernleigh Road. Here you’ll find three roadside stalls selling everything from figs to pork. The first stand is a general stand with fruit and veg. The next two are next to each other. One has a fridge where we bought some amazing fresh figs. It’s also stocked with meat sometimes (apparently, we’ve never seen it) and there is a phone number to contact if no meat is available.
From there you should continue down the road until you get to a stand selling greens. You can usually get some lettuce and some seedlings. You can follow this road around back to the highway or (we’ll get to this in the next post) double back and find some more roadside stalls on the way to Bangalow.
