Across the Great Divide

After leaving Lightning Ridge we retraced our path south towards Walgett then turned east onto the Gwydir Highway, past more cotton-growing farms to the large, green and prosperous-looking town of Moree, a refreshing change from the dry and dusty outback. We took a walk around the streets, admiring the many art deco buildings, most built in 1929. We wonder what happened in the town to cause such a building boom that year? We spent the night free camping in the tiny hamlet of Gravesend.

Passing through Warialda the next day we saw road verges which had been fenced for use as ‘long paddocks’ to graze cattle. Despite the drought still being evident, the landscape was so different, with very hilly terrain, much more plentiful vegetation and even touches of green on the paddocks. We drove straight through the large town of Inverell and stopped at Glen Innes, where we walked through the streets of town to view the many heritage buildings, including the ornate Town Hall, built in 1887. Just on the edge of town we visited the Australian Standing Stones, an arrangement of granite stones not unlike Stonehenge. The 38 stones, 24 of them in a circle, celebrate the Celtic nations whose descendants settled in the area, and reflect the movement of the Earth around the sun. The next day was cold (13.6°) and wet (7mm), a welcome drop for the farmers but nowhere near enough rain to break the drought.

We had a very cold night (-2.8°) and woke to a crunchy frost on the ground. Rod had to de-ice the windscreen with hot water before we left Glen Innes and headed north on the New England Highway to Tenterfield. We’d been there twice before so didn’t do any sightseeing, but the town is famous for Sir Henry Parkes and Peter Allen’s song, ‘Tenterfield Saddler’. From there we turned east onto the Bruxner Highway and had a white-knuckle journey across the Great Dividing Range, towing the caravan on steep, narrow and bumpy roads with many twists and turns. Our average speed for the day was 53km/h. We stopped at Casino and walked around the heritage buildings in town, then camped for the night at Kyogle.

Next day we had another hair-raising drive to Murwillumbah through several small villages tucked in between the hills, and our speed averaged just 41km/h. Some of the shops and galleries appeared rather ‘alternative’, perhaps not surprising since Nimbin is not far away. We camped at the Showgrounds, situated beside a field of sugarcane with rainforest-covered mountains in the background, which is as good as many caravan parks. In the afternoon we took a walking tour of the town and were stunned at the amount of traffic on the hilly streets, and the proliferation of crosswalks. We walked along the levee bank of the beautiful Tweed River and down the main street, where many of the buildings date from 1908-09, after a fire in 1907 burnt down over sixty buildings.

Yesterday we spent the day exploring the northern coast as far as the Queensland border. We called into Tropical Fruit World at Duranbah where we declined to pay the expensive entry fee to tour the orchard, but bought a custard apple and black sapote (chocolate pudding fruit) from the produce shop. We joined the motorway and had a fast trip to the twin towns of Tweed Heads and Coolangatta, where we stood astride the border between NSW and Queensland. We took a walk on the beautiful white sand of the beach at Coolangatta and could see the skyscrapers of Surfer’s Paradise in the distance. Next we visited Point Danger Lookout where we again saw the border line at the Captain Cook Memorial. At Fingal Head we saw the lighthouse, erected in 1879, and Giant’s Causeway, a crescent-shaped mass of hexagonal columns formed when the lava flow from a volcano cooled rapidly in the ocean. Fingal was named after a mythical Celtic giant who reportedly built the famous Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. At Kingscliff we saw three lifesavers sculpted from trees, keeping watch over the beach. Continuing down the coast we stopped at Cabarita Beach where we took the boardwalk up to Norries Headland for views north and south. At Pottsville we again joined the motorway to return to Murwillumbah. Back on the hilly and winding local roads we drove past the Madura tea plantation, then nearer town, more sugarcane fields and a mill from which we could smell the sweet aroma of sugar.