The Burringbar Tunnel is the highlight of the Northern Rivers Rail Trail, in New South Wales. Photo / Supplied
The light on my handlebars casts a beam in front of me, lighting the way through the tunnel. The cooler air rushes past my face as the e-bike beneath me makes cycling feel easy.
The Burringbar Range tunnel is a former railway tunnel that stretches a little over 500m long, and is undoubtedly the highlight of the Murwillimbah to Crabbes Creek section of the Northern Rivers Rail Trail, in Tweed, New South Wales.
We ride through it late morning as part of a 20km jaunt led by our guide, an ex-pat Kiwi named Campbell. He tells us they operate glow worm tours in the tunnel in the evenings, which sounds like a magical experience.
There are plenty of reminders that this used to be a railway line. For starters, the trail begins at the state heritage-listed Murwillumbah Railway Station, where Better By Bike kits us out with a helmet and an e-bike and explains how the various power settings work. After a quick overview of the map, we are off.
The path itself is a combination of compact gravel, a sealed surface, and a handful of bridges. If you look closely in some places, you’ll see remnants of ballast left over from its railway days.
The Northern Rivers Rail Trail was named one of Conde Nast’s Top 24 Travel Destinations in 2024, and it’s not hard to see why. The trail cuts through the countryside, taking in lush forests, tranquil rivers and charming small towns. It’s about 70 per cent under tree cover, which offers a cool reprieve in summer.
There are plenty of places to stop along the way, including the Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre, Hosanna Farmstay at Stokers Sliding, where you can feed the animals, an antique shop in Mooball, a host of cafes and even a stall offering fresh farm produce.
Another pro of it being a former railway line is that it’s incredibly flat. There’s one ever so slightly notable “hill” but the answer to that lies at my fingertips - I crank up the e-bike into turbo mode and sail up the incline without breaking a sweat, blissfully free to enjoy the scenery around me.
The last train ran through here in 2004. The railway corridor then sat abandoned for some time before moves were made to turn it into a cycle trail, which proved a good move. The Tweed section of the trail has welcomed 260,000 people since it opened in March 2023, and e-bikes only make it all the more accessible to cyclists of any fitness level.
The tunnel is about two-thirds of the way along, and we emerge from the darkness into more lush bush. It’s during this final stretch that those at the front stop suddenly. The rest of us slot in behind to find out what new nugget of information is coming our way. But it turns out they have just spotted a snake on the trail, and it slithers off to the side just in time to narrowly avoid being run over by the next rider following along. Campbell says it’s only the second time he’s ever seen a snake on the trail.
After this, the wildlife watch is on. We stop at a bridge and look down into the river where we can see turtles moving about, and are told that sometimes you can see platypus there too. Sadly, not today.
This 24km section is one of two currently open on the trail; the other is the southern section from Casino to Lismore, which is just shy of 30km long. When fully complete, the trail will stretch 132km from Murwillumbah all the way to Casino. The remaining trail will be completed in two further stages, and efforts are currently underway to find the funding to complete the work. If the scenery on those parts is anything like what we’ve pedalled through, it will be spectacular.
We are collected in Mooball, a handful of kilometres from the end of the northern section of the trail. It’s here Campbell tells us the end goal for his company is multi-day cycle trips with luggage transfers, akin to New Zealand’s Otago Central Rail Trail. If the popularity of that one is anything to go by, the Northern Rivers Rail Trail has a bright future ahead.
AUSTRALIA
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DETAILS
New Zealand Herald travelled courtesy of Accor Hotels.