Walking the Banglaow to Byron rails. Photo Benjamin Gilmore.

S ince moving to Bangalow a few years ago, my children have wanted to walk the old railway line to Byron Bay. The last ‘surf train’ ran in 2004, and the rusty tracks have lain quiet since then while railway enthusiasts lobbied for its return, and others championed a scenic ‘rail trail’.

Our children, Paloma (9), Romeo (7) and Bohème (2) weren’t going to wait. My wife, Kaspia, offered to be our on-call rescuer in case we hit trouble, and to pick us up at the other end. I clipped our youngest daughter Bohème into a baby carrier and donned a backpack containing warm clothes, umbrella, sandwiches, binoculars, snake bandages, and a machete. Then we set off, feeling like real explorers.

A quiet moment to reflect. Photo Benjamin Gilmore.

Some Bangalow residents with homes backing onto the line grow vegetables down to the rails. One pumpkin vine was so vast it had crept onto the tracks, guarded by a large black dog on a chain.

As we left Bangalow we entered a forest of young fir trees, a carpet of pine needles underfoot. But soon we got a taste of the trouble to come. Dense lantana rose up in front of us like a wall. It was time for the machete.

I quickly realised taking along a toddler strapped to the chest while hacking jungle style with a machete wasn’t that sensible. Nevertheless, we forged on. After each step I hacked, then took another step and hacked again. Surely this wasn’t how it would be the whole way?

The lantana momentarily cleared for a railway bridge, which the children crossed with ease. After passing the blueberry farm and heading over Bangalow Road, the lantana became so dense again that we needed to attack it along the edge of the line. We heard a woman’s voice calling out and came to another bridge, this one smaller. Below was a collection of makeshift dwellings, a bush community. And there was the owner of the voice, a kindly woman holding an armful of oranges.

‘You must be tired and thirsty,’ she said, throwing up oranges one at a time. But the next person we came across wasn’t so hospitable. A section of track at Coopers Shoot backed onto a fancy property with a lavish mansion. Hearing our approach, a lady in a broad-brimmed gardening hat came to the fence. She offered us nothing but a stern talking to.

‘You heard of snakes? Where you going?’ When we told her, she couldn’t believe it. ‘Madness,’ she muttered, walking away.

A hundred metres on we heard a deep rumble, like thunder, coming and going. Was it a storm? No, just the sound of vehicles going over the planks of a tall bridge. Under it, Paloma found a bunch of roses. We imagined they’d been tossed from the window of a passing car; an unwanted gift from an unwanted lover. Nearby we found a white porcelain railway insulator in the grass: the perfect vase for the flowers Paloma would give to her mother.

After battling lantana for another half a kilometre, two-year old Bohème decided she’d had enough. In a clearing at the edge of the tracks was a small marijuana plantation, then some wild strawberries. It was now 4pm and I knew we’d barely made it a third of the way. At the next bridge we waited for Kaspia to collect us.

The cycle of life. Photo Benjamin Gilmore.

A month later we returned, this time without the toddler. When my daughter asked me why exactly we were doing this, I told her she’d realise one day, that answers are not always apparent at the outset – because the journey itself provides them.

It was an encouraging start thanks to heather on the tracks and spectacular views of rolling hills. Romeo found a rabbit’s skull and followed a trail of vertebrae to the rest of the skeleton. Paloma collected vintage bottles.

But a kilometre on and the jungle was back. We hacked through it as if in the Amazon. ‘Cat’s claw’ creepers had twisted their tendrils like serpents around old railway signs, bringing them to their knees. We passed a bamboo forest, its slender stems rubbing against each other with an eerie creaking sound. Thankfully, around lunchtime we arrived at a break in the jungle on a ridge – we could see all the way to Byron and the ocean twinkling beyond. We ate our sandwiches as we watched a pair of hawks on the updraft. What a great railway journey this once had been, and if it ever became a ‘rail trail’ it would make a spectacular attraction.

Walking the Banglaow to Byron rails. Photo Benjamin Gilmore.

The rest of the afternoon was slow going. The lantana was so thick in places we slid down the muddy edge of the track to get around it. When it started getting dark I knew there’d be a third day. As we headed up to the road we navigated a forest of thorny acacia karroo vines. All three of us were soon trapped by the vicious thorns, each 2–3cm long. For the first time on the mission my children were genuinely alarmed. The more we struggled the more the karroo dug in. I reminded the children this always happens near the end of a story; the audience thinks all is lost, but it really isn’t. Then they pointed out that we weren’t anywhere near the end yet, and if it wasn’t the end, then what other horrors lay ahead?

As the rails lead on. Photo Benjamin Gilmore.

It was more than six months before I could talk our children into finishing what we’d started. And the benefits of not giving up, of determination, but the satisfaction of achievement didn’t compel them as much as the promise of a lemonade at The Rails hotel. So be it. They’d realise the rest in due course.

The next leg took us into a picturesque tunnel of ferns, some so tall the children snapped a few stems off to make fern crowns. As we neared the water towers of Hayters Hill we came across another community of fringe dwellers, this one abandoned. Several rusty station wagons lay open and abandoned. There were tables and chairs and a clothesline. In the middle of the track was an old caravan. The children imagined what it must have been like to call this place home.

About a hundred metres past Old Bangalow Road, Paloma found a gold belt and a beaded butterfly that looked like it had come off a lady’s dress. We speculated how these treasures had ended up here. I struggled to come up with an explanation for a plastic bottle with a length of garden hose in the side.

The track curved around into Lilly Pilly, right alongside the back fences of houses on Cemetery Road. We were close to Byron now. Although we’d made good time, we were yet to meet our greatest obstacle yet. It came in the form of the most enormous diamond python I have ever seen. It was like an anaconda, its body thick as fig roots, length close to four metres! Dense lantana made a quick escape impossible, and going back wasn’t an option – never an option. Romeo started banging the rails, but the python didn’t flinch. We stamped our feet and yelled, but nothing woke it.

‘We’ll just have to go around,’ said my daughter, matter-of-factly. And so we did. Just as we got level with the python, it opened a lazy eye and swivelled its head in our direction. Keeping our nerve, we continued creeping past and into the next thicket. When I looked back I saw the python settling his head down on the tracks again to continue its siesta.

We came out near The Roadhouse. The swamp on either side of the rails here made it easy to understand the mosquito problem in the area. After passing a graffiti gallery on the back wall of the hardware store, we entered an alley maze leading to the kitchen of the Avocado Hut. It was the end of lunch hour and the cafe was full. Nevertheless we stumbled into the civilised world through the diners and their clean linens. They all stared at our scruffy clothes and machetes, muddy faces, and heads adorned with fern crowns. But we weren’t stopping, not until we reached The Rails hotel, the Railway Friendly Bar to be exact, for a schooner of Stone & Wood and two glasses of cold lemonade.

Benjamin Gilmour is a local author, filmmaker and paramedic. A longer version of this story and more pictures can be found on his website.

Walking the Banglaow to Byron rails. Photo Benjamin Gilmore. Walking the Banglaow to Byron rails. Photo Benjamin Gilmore. Walking the Banglaow to Byron rails. Photo Benjamin Gilmore. Walking the Banglaow to Byron rails. Photo Benjamin Gilmore. Walking the Banglaow to Byron rails. Photo Benjamin Gilmore. Walking the Banglaow to Byron rails. Photo Benjamin Gilmore.

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Three days in a daze they were hacking away, railing against the vegetation, walking away from Bangalow and walking on, on towards the Byron Bay station, hanging on, hanging out for a drink. Were they singing Johnny Cash’s song “I Walk the Line” or were they too busy, “Oh, there is an old sink.” Three days on the great line it took the explorers down hill up dale. There was day 1 and day 2 and day 3, and they trudged on, on a straight line and onto the curves and below their feet there was an audience feeling their feet upon them a trudging and on their great journey they went. The sleepers while they trudged on and along were there needing restoration but those sleepers were just resting and the rails were in condition that was good with just a film of rust. Onward, Onward, onward or bust. The sleepers were asleep, eyes closed while the explorers’ feet in their feat crept on, on line on two steel lines, stealing away the sights and the smells and the hidden sites that they past of the past and what nobody had seen in that scene since 2004. This was a body of a great story a body to behold in the raw. It was really something to be seen something clean and away from the building of development in what they uncovered and saw.

And if there was a train on that track, the walkers would have traversed that distance in a few minutes without a carriage or a car congesting or hitting the tar of Ewingsdale Road.

So true! With a train or a rail motor then the elderly, disabled or parents with young children could enjoy the trip too.

People of all ages and ability enjoy rail trails. The minimal gradients mean anyone who can walk, ride a bike, (or an ebike), pedal a trike, push a wheelchair, sit in a wheelchair bike while someone else pedals, or drive a mobility scooter can use the trail. There is a lot more to enjoy close up to nature than there would be by sitting in a box without the opportunity can’t stop to investigate what looks interesting.

Besides, nobody is going to fund the countless millions of dollars required to return trains to the old corridor, just so they lose more millions every year running them. Even if they did the fares would be prohibitively expensive for the vast majority.

The choice is not a matter of trail versus rail but of trail versus nothing.

True Len, but they wouldn’t need to go anywhere need Ewingsdale Rd to do this trip.

We indeed have a potential treasure In our area in this rail corridor with the opportunity for it to be explored on foot and low impact vehicles. This certainly includes mobility vehicles for non cyclists. Those who are so stubbornly standing in its way need to really think about what the community is being deprived of.

Thanks for a great story, Benjamin, and for giving us a glimpse of the possibilities.

And if it was a rail trail, hundreds of cyclists and walkers could experience the magic of this every day.

what a great story!! thank you

WOW. What amazing photos. I can imagine how keen visitors will be to walk and ride the Northern Rivers Rail Trail.

The shade and visual amenity of natural vegetation right up to the trail will be one of the big draw cards for the rail trail. Rail advocates want us to destroy these beautiful verges to build a second rate trail next to the formation so the rails can continue slowly turning into two long piles of rust.

Let’s stop dreaming of imposing more industrial technology on what little we have left of nature. Mother Earth has reasserted herself over the corridor across the almost two decades since the train stopped running. We have a remarkable opportunity to preserve a special place that is uniquely accessible because steam trains were unable to climb steep gradient.

The corridor connects a host of small towns and villages to Byron Bay, one of the iconic tourist destinations on the planet. It represents a unique opportunity to bring sustainable prosperity to the hinterland. This is our last chance. There are no more public spaces anything like the corridor.

One day in the distant future, rail might well return to the region on a coastal rail route between the Brisbane-GoldCoast metropolis and NSW (Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong). It will be very high speed rail and the planners will not be interested in a tiny tortuous corridor. Like they did with the M1, the government will simply resume a virtually straight route as part of a project costing uncountable billions of dollars.

There would be huge opposition to any proposal to compromise what would be by then, the most popular rail trail in the world. Benjamin’s photos show us why. His website is well worth a look. http://benjamingilmour.com/2020/08/15/the-great-railway-expedition/

If it were a Rail Trail, we’d all have near effortless access to the grand history of this region’s rail, and we’d also have a grand new vision of the vistas we all have here, that was only visible to the train drivers of past.

‘Rail for the sake of rail’ protagonists, will only continue to condemn this extraordinary potential, to dust.

Bring on the Rail Trail, at least for the sake of our historic rail pioneers’ achievements.

Bought back fond memories of my arrival into The Bay by train in 1979… such a beautiful vista to behold!! And then living right on the tracks at Coopers Shoot in 1996 with my dogs chasing the once a day train going past about 7pm on its way to Murwillumbah. We were usually asleep as it came back south later in the night. What a fantastic story. Thanks Benjamin. Your kids are blessed to have a dad that wants to go on fun adventures with them whilst teaching them about some of life’s lessons 😉

Wow, this was a walk down memory lane, although I did this trip the easy way. I grew up in Bangalow in the 60’s and early 70’s. As a kid I used to travel by train to Byron Bay occasionally to go to the pictures with older teenagers. The ride on the train was a big adventure back then. Now to “walk the line” would be a much bigger adventure. Awesome. I guess time has shown that “mother nature” has the ultimate control and she reclaimed what is rightfully hers. It would be wonderful to clear this track and make use of the history and allow people to “walk the line” and make themselves an adventure of their own. I am almost 62 now and would love to take this walk down memory lane, to see the beauty of this part of Australia from the railway line I traveled on as a young child. Thank you Benjamin Gilmore for sharing this wonderful adventure with us.

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