Explore the lush beauty of the volcanic Green Cauldron, quaint villages and the stunning granite country of New England along a winding back route on the border of Queensland and New South Wales.
Story By Don Fuchs
A rocky spire, the high point of a dark range in the distance, juts into the cloudless sky demanding attention. It is a landmark that seems strangely out of place and yet familiar: a sight that defines a region. The moment the Tweed Valley Way branches off the busy Pacific Highway a few kilometres south of Tweed Heads it is as if a door closes on one world – urbanised, highly developed – and opens to another: sugarcane fields, a wide river with its mirror surface, and a backdrop of dark blue-green hills. Above all this, like a beacon, looms the unmistakeable 1156-metre peak of Wollumbin or Mt Warning. Visible from just about everywhere here, the volcanic plug is the lure into a region that was born of cataclysms, fire and violence.
This story excerpt is from Issue #93
Outback Magazine: Feb/Mar 2014
