MURWILLUMBAH , a quiet, inland town on a bend of the Tweed River, a little over 30km north of Byron Bay, makes a good base for exploring some of the beautiful Tweed Valley and the mountains that extend to the Queensland border.

Murwillumbah is the terminus of the coastal branch rail line from Sydney (one train daily in each direction), and almost all buses on the north coast route stop here. The tourist information office is located in the Rainforest Heritage Centre on Alma Street (Mon-Sat 9am-4.30pm, Sun 9.30am-4pm; tel 02/6672 1340), and has information on the immediate area and on several other magnificent national parks in the vicinity. It's worth dropping by the Tweed River Regional Art Gallery on Tumbulgum Road, by Nicholls Park on the river (Wed-Sun 10am-5pm; free). It displays the winners of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, which originated here, as well as the work of local artists and travelling exhibitions.

The Tweed Valley and the surrounding area close to the Queensland border are among the most beautiful in New South Wales, ringed by mountain ranges that are actually the remains of an extinct volcano. Some twenty million years ago a huge shield volcano (a flat, shield-shaped landform rather than a cone-shaped peak) spewed lava through a central vent onto the surrounding plain. Erosion carved out an enormous bowl around the centre of the resultant mass of lava, while the more resistant rocks around the edges stood firm - these are now the Nightcap , Border and McPherson ranges , the outer rim of a vast bowl. Right at its heart is Mount Warning (1150m), the original vent of the volcano, whose unmistakeable, twisted profile rises like a sentinel from the Tweed Valley. A well-marked bushwalking track leads to the top from a car park just off the national park access road, itself a turn-off from the road to Uki, southwest of town. The path is extremely steep in its final stages (allow at least 4hr there and back) but you're rewarded by a sweeping view over the ranges of the volcanic rim and across the Tweed Valley to the Pacific.

There's a less strenuous, signposted 64-kilometre scenic drive through the Tweed Valley , which takes in some of its best features. A patchwork of sugar-cane fields and tropical fruit plantations is testimony to the fertility of the volcanic soil; there's even a tea plantation. Between the villages of Tumbulgum and Duranbah, the big avocado lures the wild-at-heart towards Avocado Adventureland on Duranbah Road (daily 10am-5pm; free admission, train and bus rides extra), a plantation that grows avocados, macadamia nuts and many kinds of tropical fruit, and has been turned into a miniature theme park where you can ride through the plantation in open-air buses and miniature trains, or cruise around on man-made "tropical canals". There are canoes and aqua-bikes for rent, an animal park and playground, a restaurant and café, as well as a fruit market selling plantation produce. Slightly less commercial are the tours given during the cane-harvesting season at Condong Sugar Mill , on the Tweed River about 5km north of Murwillumbah (guided tours July-Nov Tues-Thurs 9am-3pm; $5.50). The turn-off for the Tree Tops Environment Centre (daily 10am-5pm; free) is opposite the sugar mill; the centre is the home of Griffith Furniture, which creates beautiful designs from salvaged native timber such as red cedar, using traditional timber-working techniques that you can observe in the workshop. Halfway between Nimbin and Murwillumbah, UKI is a pretty little village with views of Mount Warning; there's a small relaxed market here on the third Sunday of each month. A stall sells locally grown organic coffee, or you can sample some at the Uki Trading Post (daily 9am-5pm).