The following is an excerpt from an article by Archibald Meston, published in the Brisbane Courier on Saturday 15th May 1880, entitled From Brisbane to the Clarence Overland. It is possibly the first account of the Tweed Coast to appear in print.

The excerpt below follows the journey from Currumbin (Carumbin) to the once existing Billinudgel Creek (Billinudge), at Wooyung.beauty.

Carumbin can be crossed in safety about 500 yards up, at low tide, and a somewhat rugged path on the south side brings you out on to the beach again. We crossed just as darkness was falling, and finished the remaining six miles to the Tweed Heads in about an hour. I would advise all travellers to avoid the mouth of Carumbin, and cross where a small creek runs into it on the south side just above the small island in the middle. At the Tweed Heads we were most hospitably entertained by the pilot, Mr. M’Gregor, a fine old ancient mariner who sailed the stormy seas many years before he settled down on Point Danger to pilot shipping across the awkward entrance of the Tweed.

There is no accommodation-house here, and consequently Mr. M’Gregor’s hospitality must be considerably strained at times by people passing. One of his men, who are all married, might accept a suggestion to start an accommodation house, as one of the most unpleasant positions of a traveller is being indebted for hospitality where he is afraid to offend by offering payment, and cannot be regarded as a friend.

In our case we had an introduction to Mr. M’Gregor, and spent a delightful evening there, both he and the estimable acceptor of him “for better or for worse” vieing with each other in kindness, while Miss M’Gregor discoursed the sweetest of melodies on the piano, the intervals being-filled up by the M’Gregor’s thrilling tales of the seas in the days when he was skimming the blue waves in his white-winged ship. At 6 in the morning we were off with a couple of towels to the surf just under the rocks, returning with sound healthy appetites to breakfast.

The Tweed runs out under the south side of Point Danger, the precipitous rocks on one side and the sandy beach not more than 60 yards away on the other a very narrow and difficult entrance. Point Danger stands out in the sea like the fragment of a huge hill, covered with scrub, and about 200ft. high. The most of it belongs to Queensland, and is reserved. The Customs officer stationed here has his house on one side and his kitchen on the other. He cooks in Queensland and sleeps in New South Wales a sort of neutral inhabitant of both colonies. Having only the privilege to cook in Queensland is sufficient to ensure his happiness; he can sleep anywhere after that. He did not examine our valises or turn out our pockets in search of smuggled or contraband goods, and we are unable to say whether he took us for a couple of disguised dukes travelling incog. or a couple of desperate Noumean Communists flying for their lives on two stolen horses. Hitherto the trade of the Tweed has been nearly altogether in pine and cedar, but now the Colonial Sugar Company are erecting a large mill capable of producing about 20 tons per day, and the starting of this mill, which is being rapidly erected, will be the dawn of a new era on the river; and as there is a large area of splendid land and a genial climate I have no hesitation in saying that sugar will do for the Tweed what it has done for the Clarence, and what it is fast doing for the Richmond. The company are running a new steamer, the Terranora, built purposely for the Tweed, and she made her first trip a week after we passed. Five small schooners were lying inside, loaded with cedar for Sydney and Melbourne. We crossed early next morning, one of the pilot men kindly towing our fiery chargers over. Saddling up and mounting, we turned our sad eyes to sunny Queensland, and becomingly shed a few large-sized tears as we thought of the glories we were leaving behind us. Around Point Danger the blue waves dashed themselves into white foam, and from the “tongueless caverns of the craggy rocks” there came the melancholy wailing and sobbing of the sea like some weird Prometheus in an eternity of unrest.

Before on to the south stretched the white beach unbroken for ninety miles save by one or two headlands and the intervening rivers. That night we were to reach the Brunswick, a distance of thirty miles, and the following day thirty miles further to Ballina at the Richmond Heads. Two miles beyond the Tweed is a lighthouse and keeper’s residence, both built of bricks brought up from Sydney. Opposite, out in the sea about 200 yards, is Captain Cook’s Island, the abode of unlimited schnapper. The lighthouse is on a green point, with precipitous wave worn cliffs facing the sea, and behind on the land side the point falls away into a sand ridge covered with honeysuckle, mimosas; and breadfruit trees. South from here, the view is beautiful.

Bright morning slopes and stream illumined caves, And wind enchanted shapes of wandering mist.

Inland, the dark peak of Mount Warning, the gray cliffs of the Macpherson Range, the sombre pine scrubs of the Tweed; and seaward the continuous and majestic roll of the green waves, like walls of emerald breaking and chasing each other in long lines of snowy foam on the white sand, or throwing showers of glittering spray up the black rocks of Cook’s Island, till one might hear with Shelley

Eolian music from her sea-green plumes winnowing the crimson dawn.

Leaving the lighthouse on the point opposite Captain Cook’s Island, two miles beyond the Tweed, we descend on to a beach about six miles long, and here is the first patch of black sand in which gold is found. It lies just close in to the rocks below the lighthouse; and here also in the face of the cliff is a huge perpendicular crevice said to pass right through on to the opposite side of the promontory, and voices can be heard from either end. Where the black sand comes from no one knows, nor is it easy to say it lies in one spot isolated from all the other sand. After leaving here there is one more patch of black sand met with before reaching Ballina. Six miles from the lighthouse is Cudgen Creek, coming out under a green headland on one side and on the other a huge sand “dune” no doubt like the “sand dunes of Nakoo Wudgoo” immortalised in “Hiawatha.” The rich scrub land at this point comes within 300 yards of the sea, and about a mile back is the property of W. R. Guilfoyle, sen., whose eldest son is the genial and able curator of the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne. Two other sons are living on the property, Mr G sen.,having returned to Sydney after staying there for a while. When I stayed there a night about six years ago, the young fruit trees of all kinds were growing luxuriantly, and there was every promise of the growth of a magnificent orchard. I regretted not having time to visit it on this occasion. 

Cudgen Creek is another source of distraction to the traveller. Some go up a mile and cross on the flats, but the best place is just at the green point about 200 yards back from the sea, but this can only be done at low tide. We rode across close to the surf, incurring considerable risk, and, just on emerging, one hind leg of G’s horse went down about 3ft. in a patch of quicksand, but he got out easily. 

A point of rocks runs about 100 yards into the sea here, and from them at low tide the piscatorial traveller can haul in copious supplies of glorious schnapper, while Cudgen Creek offers him shoals of splendid whiting. From here is a long stretch of beach to the next point, and on the land side a rather monotonous succession of scrub patches, though just above the beach the breadfruit trees and little cone-shaped sand heaps, draped in a broad-leafed creeper not unlike the granadilla, present a very beautiful appearance. The first point reached is lovely, avenues of green sward here and there among rows and clumps of the loveliest shrubby trees, and on the point itself the rocks rise precipitously, seamed in huge ribs like the skeleton of some old “earth-shaking Neptune, while inland the dark hills, with the sombre pine trees towering up, outlined against the clear sky, provide a romantic background. At the next point we come to Cudgerie Creek, where oysters lie around in “Bacchanal profusion,” and we attacked them with all the energy of unscrupulous appetites. We cross this creek just at the first bend, where it is steep on one side with a sand flat on the other. Do not attempt to cross it near the surf. Here is another beautiful headland, from which we get a first glimpse of the long low dark outline of Cape Byron far away to the south, about twenty-five miles. Two miles further brings us to Mooball Creek, a second Carumbin, and here on our return we got down over our saddles, the bottom having shifted since passing down. Cross this creek about 200 yards up, where a small track goes in from the north side, and, if it is rather deep, better risk the water than the quicksand at the mouth. Eight miles further is another creek called Billinudge, which can be easily crossed anywhere back from the beach.

Extracted from The Concise Guide to Tweed History, The Tweed Coast and Hinterland 2019 by David Rae