Beyond Byron There Is More to the Byron Bay Region in the Hidden Villages and Rainforests of the Tweed Valley

Explore I TWEED NSW Beyond Byron There is more to the Byron Bay region in the hidden villages and rainforests of the Tweed Valley WORDS CRAIG TANSLEY 61 Tweed Heads Byron Bay here is a bridge painted communal table at The Modern SYDNEY in the colours of the Grocer in Murwillumbah. Here rainbow outside the writers, musicians and artists hippie hamlet of Uki, meet most mornings over coffee just up the road from a and turmeric lattes. “This is where Tfourth-generation cattle farmer we solve the problems of the Australia’s Rainbow Region who sells “moo poo” for $3 a world,” says local writer Madeleine without a hint of pretence (or any bag. Around the corner there are Doherty. “If you want peace and crowds). Empty roadways take glimpses of Mt Warning from quiet you can sit out back with the you along the rim of an ancient the verandah of top regional water dragons.” volcanic caldera, through the restaurant Mavis’s Kitchen. The While Byron Bay hogs the World Heritage-listed Gondwana star here isn’t head chef Pepe limelight on the Far North Coast Rainforest and into tiny villages though, it’s Darth Vader, a big, of NSW, the hinterland that that are home to an ever- black Muscovy duck who patrols surrounds it is still overlooked by increasing offering of galleries, the place like a dog. Northern most travellers (with the exception cafés and restaurants. New South Wales’ most lauded art of uber-trendy Bangalow). Visitors There are towns here that only gallery (Tweed Regional Gallery bypass The Tweed Valley as the local postie knows about; and Margaret Olley Centre) is a they beeline it to Byron from cute hamlets that could have 15km drive east, but I’m just as Coolangatta airport, but this been lifted out of fairy tales, DESTINATION TWEED DESTINATION happy getting my culture fix at a is where you can experience hidden mostly behind blooming PHOTOGRAPHY Explore I TWEED NSW jacaranda and poinciana. In On the drive to Chillingham – blink and you’ll miss the place – there’s a pottery the national park store by the bend of a slow-moving that surrounds Take to river and a general store where the roads locals congregate over a takeaway it, rainforest grows brew. Buck Buchanan owns the farm beside the store, which offers above the road free tours. Buck is one of the most and forms a green innovative fruit farmers in Australia – his finger limes are sent off to cathedral that lets in Tetsuya’s and Matt Moran’s ARIA a hint of sunlight Restaurant every week, though he’s never eaten at either because you won’t catch him in a pair of shoes, or even thongs. from actress Margot Robbie, run Creative heart by a farming family among the Just west, I drive beneath the sugar cane plantations of sleepy Border Ranges with their kilometre- North Tumbulgum. You can see Mt high sheer faces to the hamlet of Warning from the front, while out Tyalgum in time for a classical back you’ll see the cane they use to 62 music festival that attracts the fuel the rum. likes of pianist Roger Woodward. The region’s best beer is made The tiny main street is home to an at Stone & Wood just across the eclectic gathering of silversmiths, highway, and the country’s best furniture makers, fashion designers charred octopus is served in a tiny and bakers who run an alternative boutique restaurant (Potager – A lifestyle co-operative. Kitchen Garden) overlooking a I grew up around these parts; winery and the Pacific Ocean. back then the scenery was the only thing that drew visitors, but these days farmers’ markets are held daily in the towns of the hinterland. The villages that looked destitute in my adolescence, such as Burringbar (just south of Murwillumbah), are now home to cheese factories, breweries, galleries and quirky cafés. The beaches on the edge of the Tweed Valley are as picturesque as those in Byron Bay – though many are all but deserted. Those with fine-dining restaurants such as Fins (at Salt), Osteria (at Casuarina) and Paper Daisy (at Cabarita) attract bigger crowds. There is a gin and rum distillery (Husk Distillers), made famous thanks to social media assistance Explore I TWEED NSW The striking Queenslander that’s home to Mavis’s Kitchen. INSET: The region’s pretty back roads. BELOW (left to right): At one of the many local farmers’ markets, a local produce store. 63 MAVIS’S KITCHEN, DESTINATION NSW DESTINATION KITCHEN, MAVIS’S PHOTOGRAPHY Mountain high sunrise. Local Indigenous know it Murwillumbah is the springboard as Wollumbin, or Cloud Catcher, to the region, but it’s left off all a traditional place for boys to be but the most curious of travellers’ initiated into manhood. It’s the itineraries. It’s an art deco town centrepiece to any Tweed Valley coming of age (after recovering experience, the beacon that guides from the worst floods in history you home and, just like Uluru, in April), where farmers mix with it changes colour through the Hare Krishnas and new-age types, day. On the drive to the national while retailers such as Work ’N’ park that surrounds it, rainforest Country Gear are fused with artisan grows above the road and forms a patisseries, hipster barista/barber green cathedral that lets in a hint stores and a cinema screening of sunlight. Wollumbin National arty films. Park is home to the world’s highest I’m basing myself in a cabin in concentration of ancient Antarctic the bush outside the town of Uki beech forest, but it’s just one of the that looks across to Mt Warning. national parks you can visit. Only At 1156 metres, Mt Warning is the a few minutes west, I drive into first place in Australia to catch the the lesser-known Border Ranges Explore I TWEED NSW Views to Mt Warning. BELOW: The Ink Gin shiraz martini from Husk Distillers. Try it here WHERE TO STAY EcOasis Stay in a cabin with floor-to-ceiling windows and see wallabies, tawny frogmouths and yellow- tailed black cockatoos in bushland overlooking Mt Warning. ecoasis.com.au WHERE TO EAT Mavis’s Kitchen It’s the Tweed Valley’s most lauded eatery, dine out in the enclosed verandah of a restored Queenslander with views across Wollumbin National Park. maviseskitchen.com.au Potager – A Garden Kitchen 64 Swiftly becoming a National Park where you can view favourite for local foodies, the region in its entirety. There are Potager is set in a quiet five World Heritage-listed national green valley that looks out Made in to the beaches of the parks in the region and few places Tweed Gold Coast. on earth contain quite so many potager.com.au ancient plants and animals. The Modern Grocer Outside the Tweed Valley, there Become an intergral part of are more secrets to be found in the eclectic Murwillumbah Byron Bay’s hinterland. I love community at the best providore and coffee shop the drive to Minyon Falls on the in town. eastern edge of the Nightcap themoderngrocer.com National Park; there’s a 100-metre- Tasting Plate food tour high waterfall into a secret Sample from the best farms, valley of tall, skinny Bangalow restaurants and distilleries palms. Along the way there are the region has to offer on a Tasting Plate food tour. still honesty fruit stalls by the tastingplatetours.com.au roadside in communities such as Goonengerry and Federal, and the historic railway village of Eltham is home to arguably the best pecan fingers bleed and forest folk dance Travel info pie in Australia (at Eltham Valley like no-one is watching. Pantry). The village of Bexhill has As farmer Buck says: “There’s a unique open-air cathedral and something about the soil in this Jetstar has great low fares to Gold Coast and Ballina Byron Bay the funky market at The Channon hinterland. It’s nearly perfect … from across the network, and is one of the largest in regional full of trace elements, zinc, iron, all extensive car hire options. HUSK DISTILLERS NSW, DESTINATION NSW. The same stalls I remember of that. Maybe that’s why we don’t To book, visit still sell incense and tarot cards, want for much out here. There are JETSTAR.COM buskers beat bongos so hard their worse places to be.” PHOTOGRAPHY.

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