Tweed Heads to Dreamtime
36 km (36 km) | 9 hr
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step ~Lao Tzu
You can walk anywhere you want to if you have time. And while it has famously been said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, I’ve been reminded by my nearest and dearest that so too does falling into a ditch and breaking your neck! Nevertheless, today I take my first step on my 1000 mile, 1000 beaches NSW coastal walk. Momentous to no-one else besides me, myself and I, but then again we all deserve to be the hero in our own tales and this one is mine.
I disembark from my early morning flight at Gold Coast airport and leave my pack at the Bilinga Youth Hostel. It’s only a few hundred metres to Bilinga Beach and that long, lovely strip of sand and rocky headlands stretching south to Snapper Rocks and Point Danger. An excellent warm-up on this crisp winter’s morning – if winter it can ever be called on the Queensland Gold Coast.
It is easy beach walking to magical Snapper Rocks, renowned for its near perfect surf break. Point Danger, marking the official NSW - Queensland coastal border, and Duranbah, the northernmost NSW beach, both sit on the northern side of the Tweed River; while on the southern side of the Tweed, Leticia Spit and the perfectly named Dreamtime Beach stretch like a long, crooked finger-into the Tweed River estuary.
I reach the NSW border and… well… it is a suburban street (appropriately named Boundary St) with a small park and a fairly unremarkable monument. On the beautiful winter morning that marks the very first day of my walk the monument itself is under repair. Nevertheless, I announce to myself that the walk is about to officially begin, a few internal Beethoven symphonic chords, I take that historic (to me) first step and I am officially on my way…
Through Lovers Rock Park and down the black basalt slopes to Duranbah beach, sometimes called Flagstaff but definitely D’bah to the locals. D’bah is the first of the 1000 NSW beaches I hope to walk along. Little Duranbah beach chalks up # 2, and I am yet to even cross the Tweed River!
Moving on from Little D’bah, I follow the pretty walkway on the north side of the Tweed River and cross it at the M1 bridge. I return to the coast at the southern end of Dreamtime Beach and then head north – one of the very rare times on the walk that I head in the ‘wrong’ direction!
I stroll towards mighty Fingal Head - Booninybah, the place of the big echidna. Fingal Lighthouse and amazing views northwards and southwards and over hexagonal rocks out to Cook Island greet me from the tip of the headland. It is whale season and I never tire of the sight of these awe-inspiring leviathans. I am privileged to have these magnificent creatures all around me at the headland and then as my near constant companions for the first few days of my quest. I round Fingal Head and continue to Letitia Spit and the south head seawall of the Tweed. I am eminently satisfied that I have traversed both the real and imagined northern tips of the state of New South Wales.
I turn around and head back to Chinderah, this time a little inland along the western side of the spit. The southern bank of the Tweed is glorious in the fading sunlight, and a pleasant change from the shadeless walk north along the beach. I return to the hostel to a well-earned dinner and a friendly chat with a group of international backpackers. I probably overshare my day’s adventures and my plans for the many days of walking ahead. I celebrate Day 0 with a soothing Guiness and hit the sack – so, so ready and willing for the days ahead.