Tiger Tales

Wild At Heart

Get your motor running and explore the Tweed Coast on the back of a Harley-Davidson

On the doorstep of the Gold Coast, the Tweed Valley is a wonderland of unspoiled beaches, rainforests, farmland and rustic villages, says Karen Ransome.
Photography by Mark Lobo

Mac Swift is the real deal. From the tips of his well-scuffed, pointy-toed boots to the leather vest barely covering his tattooed arms, Mac is undoubtedly a biker. With a black bandanna covering the lower half of his face, his steely gaze is tinged with just a hint of despair as he gives me the once-over from the seat of his gleaming Harley-Davidson bike.

Let’s just say, no one is ever going to mistake me for a biker. My borrowed oversized leather jacket reaches almost to my knees, and the cavernous sleeves render my hands all-but invisible. If Little Orphan Annie had decided to take to the highways as a bikie moll, I’m pretty sure this is what she would have looked like.

“Keep one foot on the ground and swing your other leg over,” instructs Mac, giving the 1650cc engine a few throaty revs to hurry me up. For someone with my 160cm-frame, a move like that is easier said than done. By the time I’ve all-but throttled him, scraped my boot across the previously spotless leather seat and nearly toppled over the backrest, Mac’s carefully crafted image is in tatters.

As the owner of Wildfire Tours on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Mac has transported pillion passengers wearing everything from ballgowns to business suits. Organising motorbike convoys with up to 130 of his Harley-riding buddies, he has escorted debutantes to their high-school formals and “kidnapped” conference delegates, rushing them through the streets of Surfers Paradise to theme parks.

Today, however, Mac is giving me the full-throttle experience — taking the roads less travelled away from the Gold Coast high-rises and into the beautiful Tweed Valley on a tailored half-day tour. Roaring south along the Pacific Motorway at 110km/h, I am forced to admit – in keeping with journalistic ethics – that my eyes have been squeezed shut for the past ten minutes.

In retrospect, this wasn’t a bad way to start my Harley experience. Without the visual distractions, other senses come into play: the vibrations of the motor running through my body make me feel at one with the bike. I revel in the sensation of plowing into the wind and leaning smoothly from one side to the other as we move with the Harley around the big curves.

By the time we cross the Queensland/ New South Wales state border and hit the broad flat canefields of the Tweed Valley, I’ve managed to loosen my death grip on Mac’s jacket. I now feel at home in the comfy leather seat and am grinning like a Cheshire cat as I wave at passing motorists.

Turning off the motorway, the scenery – and the traffic – changes dramatically as we hit the Tweed Coast. In full cruising mode now, we fly along beside stretches of uncrowded white sand beach and rocky headlands where perfect breaks attract clusters of surfers. From the other side of the road, we draw admiring glances from the early morning breakfast crowd as they sip lattes and chai tea at the outdoor cafés lining the esplanade at Kingscliff. To be fair, I’m quite sure their admiration is for Mac and his Softail Heritage Classic, rather than for the idiot yahooing from the pillion seat.

After roaring through the quiet seaside villages of Salt and Casuarina, we arrive at our coffee shop of choice. It’s the Pandanus Café, right on Cabarita Beach, where the distinctively surfie vibe reflects the township’s laidback ambience. Known as “Caba” by the locals, it is the ultimate sea change destination, where surf shops and ‘50s-style beach houses mix comfortably with trendy beach bars and low-rise holiday apartments.

Over a frothy cappuccino I learn that beneath his tough biker exterior, Mac is a gentle soul. The former owner of a computer software company, he traded macros and metadata for the open road and an iron horse over a decade ago, when he bought a Harley and started riding for a tour company. After four years, he took over the business.

But enough idle chit-chat: we’re on a mission and there’s much more to the Tweed than fabulous beaches. Within minutes of leaving the coast, we’re sweeping around the twists and turns of a winding country road through emerald green farmland, canefields and patches of rainforest. On the roadside, make-shift stalls are laden with tomatoes, avocadoes, bananas, sweet potatoes and just about everything else that grows in the rich, red soils of neighbouring farms.

Pulling into Tropical Fruit World at the top of the coastal range, the panoramic views out across the Tweed Valley give a sense of the region’s unique geography. Twenty million years ago, the valley was a bubbling one side to the other as we move with the Harley around the big curves.

By the time we cross the Queensland/ New South Wales state border and hit the broad flat canefields of the Tweed Valley, I’ve managed to loosen my death grip on Mac’s jacket. I now feel at home in the comfy leather seat and am grinning like a Cheshire cat as I wave at passing motorists.

Turning off the motorway, the scenery – and the traffic – changes dramatically as we hit the Tweed Coast. In full cruising mode now, we fly along beside stretches of uncrowded white sand beach and rocky headlands where perfect breaks attract clusters of surfers. From the other side of the road, we draw admiring glances from the early morning breakfast crowd as they sip lattes and chai tea at the outdoor cafés lining the esplanade at Kingscliff. To be fair, I’m quite sure their admiration is for Mac and his Softail Heritage Classic, rather than for the idiot yahooing from the pillion seat.

After roaring through the quiet seaside villages of Salt and Casuarina, we arrive at our coffee shop of choice. It’s the Pandanus Café, right on Cabarita Beach, where the distinctively surfie vibe reflects the township’s laidback ambience. Known as “Caba” by the locals, it is the ultimate sea change destination, where surf shops and ‘50s-style beach houses mix comfortably with trendy beach bars and low-rise holiday apartments.

Over a frothy cappuccino I learn that beneath his tough biker exterior, Mac is a gentle soul. The former owner of a computer software company, he traded macros and metadata for the open road and an iron horse over a decade ago, when he bought a Harley and started riding for a tour company. After four years, he took over the business.

But enough idle chit-chat: we’re on a mission and there’s much more to the Tweed than fabulous beaches. Within minutes of leaving the coast, we’re sweeping around the twists and turns of a winding country road through emerald green farmland, canefields and patches of rainforest. On the roadside, make-shift stalls are laden with tomatoes, avocadoes, bananas, sweet potatoes and just about everything else that grows in the rich, red soils of neighbouring farms.

Pulling into Tropical Fruit World at the top of the coastal range, the panoramic views out across the Tweed Valley give a sense of the region’s unique geography. Twenty million years ago, the valley was a bubbling cauldron of lava stretching over 5,000sq km – the largest shield volcano in the Southern Hemisphere. What’s left today is an almost perfect semi-circle of mountains surrounding a lush Eden, which contains the ancient volcanic plug of Mt Warning. The sub-tropical climate nurtures the World Heritage rainforests that blanket the caldera rim and spill into the ancient crater. The volcanic soils provide the foundation for a patchwork of sugarcane fields, banana tree groves, coffee and tea plantations, and market gardens.

Proving that just about anything can be grown under these idyllic conditions, the Tropical Fruit World orchards produce over 500 varieties of rare and exotic fruits. The trees are weighed down with lychees, tamarillos, chocolate pudding fruit (black sapotes), macadamia nuts and monster jakfruit weighing up to 20kg. At other times of the year, you can sample rambutans, lemon meringue pie fruit (rollinia), lemonade fruit, dragon fruit and champagne fruit (babaco).

While a steady stream of tourists arrives from the Gold Coast to take tractor tours of the 650,000sqm property, others travel from even farther afield to stock up at the onsite fruit market. “Between Christmas and New Year, we sold four tons of jakfruit,” says operations manager Aymon Gow. “Our market’s really popular with Asian chefs who know they can buy a lot of traditional fruits here that you won’t find at a regular supermarket.”

Back on the road again, Mac and I head farther west, happily disturbing the peace as we follow the Tweed River through the art and craft village of Tumbulgum with its gorgeous old pub. We cruise past the art deco shopfronts of bustling Murwillumbah, which serves as the commercial hub of the Valley, and on to its centrepiece, Mt Warning.

Reaching a height of over 1,150m, Mt Warning is considered a sacred site by the Aboriginal tribes that have occupied this land for over 40,000 years. More recently, a variety of New Age communities have sprung up near the mountain, claiming that numerous earth energy lines converge here. As we drive towards the base of the mountain, you can almost feel the ancient spirits moving through the trickling creeks and tangled rainforests.

For young men of the ancient tribes, climbing Mt Warning was a rite of passage. Their descendants now ask that visitors avoid taking the challenging four-hour round trip to the summit. Frankly, that’s all the incentive I need to opt for the 200m Lyrebird Track, which leads to a viewing platform in the rainforest where you can hear the throbbing call of wompoo pigeons and the eerie crack of whipbirds.

Feeling well in need of sustenance by this time, we pull up to Mavis’ Kitchen – an award-winning farmhouse restaurant located at the base of the mountain. Owned by Charlie Ebell and Peter Clarke, this elegant old Queenslander-style building was relocated from the Gold Coast three years ago to save it from developers. Having served its time there as an upmarket dining venue, it was reborn in the Tweed Valley as a restaurant serving simple, fresh, organic “slow food” – much of which is grown in the property’s biodynamic kitchen garden or by local organic farmers.

Lunch is followed by a tour of the garden with Charlie, who is passionate about the environment and sustainable farming. “We want people to experience how good food really tastes when it’s grown without any chemicals or pesticides,” he says. “Buying locally grown produce in season also means you’re reducing the carbon emissions that come from transporting food from other parts of the world.”

It’s a lesson that Mac and I take to heart as we make one final stop at a roadside stall on our way back to the Gold Coast. The store holder seems impressed – dare I say even a little apprehensive – when I casually swing off the bike, unbuckle my helmet and swagger to her colourful display of fruits and vegetables.

The only sign that I’m not who I appear to be is the fact that, after four hours astride Mac’s Harley, my gait is so bandy-legged that I look more like a cowboy minus his horse than a seasoned biker chick. It may take a few more rides before I perfect “the look”.  

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