Tumbrella

The small beachside town of Yamba, in northern New South Wales, has been voted Australia’s top town.

In a survey by Australian Traveller magazine, Port Douglas, Broome, Byron Bay, Port Fairy and Margaret River also ranked well in their list of top 100 towns. As did Western Australia’s Esperance, which came second.

A big surprise was Alice Springs coming in at number 13 and Broken Hill at number 25. Noosa meanwhile was only 20th.

The top 10 towns, in order, are Yamba, Esperance, Port Douglas (Queensland), Broome (WA), Port Fairy, Beechworth (both Victoria), Byron Bay (NSW); Apollo Bay (Vic), Strahan (Tasmania), and Margaret River (WA).

The state-by state breakdown makes interesting reading too. NSW had 29 towns in the top 100, Victoria 16, Queensland 16, South Australia 13, WA 13 and Tasmania seven.

Do you agree? Tumbrella is a big fan of Tassie’s Strahan – and Stanley. We think they both should have rated higher…

TNT recently ran a story on Yamba.

The full list can be seen here

There’s been a couple of Northern Territory croc sightings reported over the last few days. A two-metre saltie was seen a popular Darwin beach, though much more fuss has been made about a “monster” croc seen near a popular Northern Territory tourist reserve.

It is believed to be at least 4.5m long was photographed at Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve – about 70km southeast of Darwin, reports the Northern Territory News.

Mr Hannond, of Stuart Park, said the saltie was sitting only two metres from where he stopped his car. “I’ve never ever seen a croc that size out of the water,” he said.