Things to Do in the Tweed: Tropical Fruit World, Husk Distillers & the Valley

The Short Answer

Most of the Tweed is 10 to 45 minutes from Gold Coast Airport (Uki and Tyalgum about an hour), and Tropical Fruit World at Duranbah is about 15 km and 20 minutes away.

Per vehicle, GST included, locked at booking. The trip back to the airport costs less — $115 / $160 from Tropical Fruit World, $115 / $150 from Husk and the gallery — because airport pickups include the in-terminal meet and greet and the airport access fee. Tweed Heads starts at $70 Sedan or similar; for more than one stop, a day hire with a driver starts from $750 in the Kia Carnival.

Most Gold Coast visitors never cross the border, and the ones who do usually drive straight past the Tweed on the way to Byron. That is a mistake. The Tweed Shire has the region’s only tropical fruit plantation you can tour, a distillery that grows its own sugar cane, a free regional gallery good enough to draw national touring shows, a headland with basalt columns, and thirty kilometres of beach that Kingscliff and Cabarita have mostly to themselves. It is also close — closer to Gold Coast Airport than Surfers Paradise is. CGC Airport Transfers runs fixed-fare private transfers to every Tweed zone from both airports and day hire with a driver for the days you want to see three things instead of one.

Gold Coast Airport, on the border at Bilinga, handled more than 6.2 million travellers in 2025, according to its own newsroom — and Fingal Head and Tropical Fruit World are 10 and 20 minutes from its terminal.

Tropical Fruit World, Duranbah

A working 200-acre fruit farm in the hills above the Tweed Valley that grows more than 500 varieties — mangosteen, jackfruit, black sapote, dozens you will not have heard of — and opened its gates to visitors in 1983. The farm tour is the reason to go: a guided plantation safari by tractor train through the orchards, a fruit-tasting show, a short wildlife boat cruise, a fauna park and an introduction to bush tucker. Allow two to three hours. The café, fruit market and gift shop open daily and are worth it on their own; the market sells what was picked that week and the farm’s own products made from it.

Husk Distillers, North Tumbulgum

The distillery behind Ink Gin — the one that changes colour from deep blue to pink when the tonic goes in, coloured by butterfly pea flowers grown on the property — and a farm-to-bottle cane rum made from sugar cane the distillery grows itself on the banks of the Tweed. The cellar door opens at 11am every day (closing 4pm Monday and Tuesday, 5pm Wednesday to Friday and Sunday, 6pm Saturday), and the 45-minute tour comes with a gin and tonic on arrival and a rum tasting flight in the barrel house. Visit on a weekday between August and October and you may catch the crush. The garden bar looks straight up the valley to Wollumbin.

Tumbulgum sits in our Murwillumbah zone: a fixed $130 sedan / $165 Kia Carnival from Gold Coast Airport, $115 / $150 back. About 35 minutes from the airport and 45 to 55 from Surfers Paradise, which is exactly why a driver makes sense — nobody has to skip the flight. Fares from both airports and every pickup are on our Husk Distillers transfers page.

“The back road from Duranbah down to Tumbulgum is narrow and winding, and in harvest you share it with the cane trucks — I’d rather be the one driving it after the rum flight than you. Fruit World in the morning, Husk after lunch: that’s the order that works.”

Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre, Murwillumbah

Free entry, and the best regional gallery in the state by some distance. It sits on a hill at 2 Mistral Road, South Murwillumbah, with a wall of glass facing Wollumbin, and shows just over twenty exhibitions a year, including touring shows from the national collection. The permanent draw is the Margaret Olley Art Centre: the painter’s Paddington home studio, recreated room by room down to the paint tubes, so you walk through the interiors that appear in her still lifes. Open Wednesday to Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday, with a free guided tour at 11.30am daily. The café does lunch with the view. Same fare zone as Husk — $130 / $165 from the airport — and the two are 15 minutes apart, so they pair naturally.

The Valley: Wollumbin, Tumbulgum, Uki and Tyalgum

Wollumbin, Mount Warning is the volcanic plug at the centre of the caldera the whole Tweed sits in, and the first place on the mainland to catch the morning sun. The summit track has been closed since 2022 at the request of the mountain’s Aboriginal custodians, and it stays closed — see it from the gallery, the Tweed Valley Way or the villages, not from the top.

Tumbulgum is a river village of one main street with a pub from 1887 on the water and a jetty beside it — the natural lunch stop between Husk and the gallery. Murwillumbah has the gallery, the free Tweed Regional Museum and a main street of Art Deco shopfronts. Uki and Tyalgum are the villages under the caldera rim, twenty-odd minutes further in, with rainforest walks, a Saturday market culture and a bakery or two that justify the drive. Tyalgum and Uki have their own fixed zone — $155 sedan / $215 Carnival from the airport, $140 / $195 back — and their own pages: Tyalgum and Uki to Gold Coast Airport.

Fingal Head

Ten minutes from the airport and most people fly straight over it. A short walk from the car park leads out onto the headland to the Giants Causeway — hexagonal basalt columns stepping down into the sea, the same volcanic geometry as the Irish one — with an 1872 lighthouse behind you, Dreamtime Beach on the far side and Cook Island a kilometre offshore in its marine reserve. Half an hour is enough; an hour with the beach is better. Fingal Head is in our Banora Point zone: $80 sedan / $110 Kia Carnival from Gold Coast Airport, $65 / $95 back.

The Tweed Coast: Kingscliff to Pottsville

Kingscliff is the town: a beachfront main street, the Salt Village precinct with the resorts and restaurants, and Cudgen Creek at the southern end where the water is flat enough for kids and paddleboards. Farm & Co at Cudgen, a few minutes inland, is an organic farm with a café and market garden and, in season, a sunflower field that fills Instagram. Casuarina is the newer beach suburb south of the creek. Kingscliff, Casuarina, Cudgen, Salt Village and Kings Forest are one fare zone: $105 / $135 from the airport, $90 / $120 back — the same as Surfers Paradise.

Cabarita Beach has Norries Headland, the best land-based whale watching on this coast from about June to October, and a village that has kept its size. Hastings Point has the lookout over the creek mouth and the rock platform at low tide; Pottsville is the quiet end. These three are the Tweed Coast zone: $125 / $155 from the airport, $110 / $140 back.

Tweed Heads

The border town, and in our closest fare zone — $70 / $100 from the airport, $55 / $85 back. Point Danger has the Captain Cook memorial lighthouse straddling the state line, so you can stand in two states at once, and the lookout over Duranbah Beach where the surfers are. Jack Evans Boat Harbour on the Tweed River is where the river cruises leave from, and a couple of hours on the water is the easiest way to see the lower Tweed without a car.

Fares from Gold Coast Airport, and Day Hire

✓ Prices updated 21 September 2026

• All prices include GST, per vehicle, locked at booking
• Gold Coast Airport pickups include the airport access fee and in-terminal meet and greet; that is why the pickup column is higher
• Displayed pricing is based on standard-rate hours from 6am to 9pm; after-hours transfers between 9pm and 6am may incur an additional surcharge, shown in the online quote before you confirm
• Child seats $35 per seat, fitted before pickup
• From a Gold Coast hotel rather than the airport, or between two Tweed attractions: priced in the booking form, or take the day hire

Can You Do Tropical Fruit World and Husk Distillers in One Day?

Yes — they are the natural pair, and the Tweed Regional Gallery fits in on the way home. Book the farm tour for the morning and allow two to three hours, have lunch on the river at Tumbulgum, take the Husk tour after lunch (the cellar door opens at 11am), and finish at the gallery in Murwillumbah, which opens Wednesday to Sunday. Separate fixed transfers don’t link the stops, so the simple way is day hire: one driver and a Kia Carnival for up to 7 people from $750, or the 12-seat VW Crafter (up to 11 passengers) for bigger groups, with nobody driving after the rum flight. Every venue keeps New South Wales time, an hour ahead of the Gold Coast in daylight saving — tell us the tour times and we set the pickups in Queensland time.

Practical Notes for the Tweed

• Time zone. Everything on this page is in New South Wales, which is one hour ahead of Queensland from early October to early April. A 10am gallery opening is 9am Gold Coast time in summer. We book pickups in Queensland time and allow for it — just tell us the attraction’s time and which side of the border you are starting from.
• Booking the attractions. Tropical Fruit World tours and Husk distillery tours both book out on weekends and in school holidays; book them first, then the transfer.
• Child seats. In New South Wales every child under 7 must travel in an approved restraint, and unlike Queensland there is no booked-hire exemption — tell us the ages and one fitted seat covers the whole day.
• Roads. The Tweed Valley Way from the highway to Murwillumbah is sealed and easy; the Duranbah and Tumbulgum back roads are narrow, winding and shared with cane trucks in harvest — another argument for not hiring a car for the day.
• Whale season. June to October at Norries Headland, Cabarita. Take a jumper; the point is windy.
• Cash. Farm gates and village markets still like it. Everything else takes cards.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Resources

• Tropical Fruit World transfers — fares, tour times and pickups
• Husk Distillers transfers — fares, pickups and NSW time
• Things to do on the Northern Rivers — Byron, the Tweed and the valley
• Day trip hire — driver and vehicle for the day
• Kingscliff to Gold Coast Airport
• Tyalgum and Uki to Gold Coast Airport
• Duranbah and the border villages to Gold Coast Airport
• Fingal Head to Gold Coast Airport
• Pottsville and the Tweed Coast to Brisbane Airport
• Murwillumbah to Gold Coast Airport
• Gold Coast Airport transfers hub
• Resources hub

External Authority Resources

NSW Government — Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre lists the gallery’s free entry, opening days and accessibility.

Transport for NSW — child car seats sets out the New South Wales restraint rules that apply south of the border.