Byron Bay accommodation adds Blackbird B&B to the mix
Kick back in a region that birthed the Aquarius Festival in 1973 and still wears the flower crown as the nation’s alternative lifestyle capital.
Cane grass caresses the side of my rental car as I grind up the last few of several hundred metres of narrow, unsealed road towards what – I’m hoping – is Blackbird, a boutique bed and breakfast perched high in the Byron hinterland, in the Northern Rivers region of NSW.
Satnav declares itself done, but my surroundings make me wonder if I’ve somehow gone off-piste. I park, and cautiously crunch across gravel towards what looks like an abandoned shed, with a long wall of rusted corrugated iron sheeting punctuated by cactuses and succulents.
Turns out, I’m in the right place. Hearing me approach, Victoria Spring, Blackbird’s onsite manager, emerges from between two distressed timber doors to usher me into reception – a free-flowing, indoor-outdoor space that captures the bohemian aesthetic of its Mullumbimby location. Exposed beams, weathered terracotta pots and an assemblage of furniture, including a hefty timber table where guests gather for meals, make for an interior that is more living room than lodgings.
Outside, there is ample space to curl up on recycled sun loungers, hunker under the shade of floral print beach umbrellas, or swim laps in a 10m magnesium pool. “The pool isn’t heated, but during the day it’s like a sun trap in here,” Spring explains. As for that rusted corrugated iron sheeting that encloses the space? It’s from the roof of an old packing shed that once stood on this former banana plantation. There are 270-degree views of undulating hills and coastline stretching from New Brighton in the north to Lennox Head in the south, with the Cape Byron lighthouse, the first spot to catch the sun’s rays, about midpoint.
Spring, a former press photographer turned jewellery designer, pours a flute of champagne, instructs me how to work the infra-red sauna, and explains the communal minibar’s honesty system. Then she asks what sort of milk I prefer, so she can stock the fridge in my room. It’s the first inkling that dietaries are a particular preoccupation in a region that birthed the Aquarius Festival in 1973 and still wears the flower crown as the nation’s alternative lifestyle capital. Here, I learn, the produce is usually vegetarian, free-range, or homegrown; the tea loose-leaf, organic or wild-crafted; and the milk, typically, from anything but a cow.
I drop my bags and head back to Mullumbimby’s laid-back main street for my booking at The Banya, a bathhouse built on the bones of a 1920s bank, which opened in January. I breathe deeply in the wood-fired sauna before sliding into a hot mineral pool, watching clouds overhead turning shades of cotton candy. Then it’s time to head upstairs for a pre-booked massage. The low lights and soothing strains of sitar don’t quite drown out the laughter and conversation emanating from the hot tubs below, but the combined effect makes me feel as if I’m ensconced in a bubble. Before my therapist whispers my shoulders are tight, I’m drifting off to sleep.
Just as well, then, that my dinner venue afterwards is a short doddle down the street. Milk & Honey Wine Bar & Pizzeria serves wood-fired pizzas and other Italian fare, with a drinks list featuring small, sustainable and minimal intervention wines. I settle on a pizza comprising a base of hand-stretched, 48-hour fermented sourdough topped with fresh local prawns, “cheese” made from macadamia and miso, and lemon-infused red chilli sauce, which has a kick like a mule.
The next day, I’m up before dawn for a hot-air balloon ride over the rolling hills and valleys of a region still recovering after the 2022 floods. Drifting at 15km/h over Lismore in the early morning light, pilot Emiliano Cataldi remarks that the rooftops below us were only just visible when floodwaters swallowed the town. I later ask Spring how Blackbird fared during this time. They lost power, she says, were surrounded by water and drew people seeking higher ground. “One couple came in the clothes they were wearing, with a cat under one arm,” she adds.
I’m staying in the middle of three detached pavilions – stark brutalist concrete structures that open to reveal light-drenched, soothing cocoons within. The kingsize bed is dressed in muted shades of linen, the burnished concrete floor is softened with rattan rugs, and the bathroom showcases Moroccan tiles and exposed pipes. Binoculars, a stargazing chart and a hiking guide, invite guests to connect with their surroundings.
I contemplate the gun barrel view of the hinterland that’s visible through the reclaimed railway sleepers and rusted steel mesh structures outside my pavilion. Installed to enhance privacy, they also demonstrate founder James Hudson’s commitment to “zero miles materials”. His sustainability focus is evident elsewhere, from the pavilions’ floor-to-ceiling louvre windows (which minimise the need for airconditioning, though it’s there if you must have it) to the property running wholly on UV filtered rainwater.
When I remark to Hudson that the bathroom vanity’s second tap, dispensing alkaline water, sounds very Northern Rivers, he laughs and cheerfully counters with, “It’s the fountain of youth”.
The next couple of days pass in a blur of good food, thanks to the produce that grows in this region’s red volcanic soils and bountiful oceans. Overlooking pandanus framing a view of rolling waves, I dine on Raes on Wategos’ tasting menu, with the standout being medium rare mahi mahi served with crispy charred and salted skin.
I spend four hours happily grazing through a long lunch at Pipit in Pottsville, where chef Ben Devlin performs sorcery using local ingredients from abiu fruit to bay lobster. I venture into Cadeau in Brunswick Heads, which has menu items such as chicken liver parfait, confit swordfish and crumbed lamb’s brains in a caper sauce. When they opened this carnivore’s refuge in 2019, Holly Ottignon and her Swiss-Italian husband, chef Giorgio Ravelli, raised eyebrows, but their ethos isn’t all that different.
“We like to use the whole animal and minimise waste,” Ottignon explains.
My final morning is given over to a clay workshop with Lauren Siemonsma of Ochre Ceramics. As she pours me a coffee, I browse her wall of chunky bowls, mugs, pitchers and plates. Having lost her car and her last kiln in the floods, Siemonsma attests to the therapeutic benefits of this practice.
“It’s a circular motion on repeat, that’s what makes it really grounding,” she says, as she demonstrates how to shape the heavy clay by hand. She encourages me to focus on process over product.
“If you get nothing other than that you had coffee and a croissant, and you get back in the car and you’re happy and calm, does it matter what you’ve made?” she says.
Denise Cullen was a guest of Destination NSW.
IN THE KNOW
Blackbird is at 210 Frasers Rd, about 35 minutes’ drive from Byron Bay and 12 minutes’ drive from Mullumbimby, in northern NSW. Rates start from $1390 for two nights, including breakfast. Chef-prepared degustation dinners and in-house massages are available for an additional cost. A 90-minute bathhouse experience followed by a massage at The Banya costs $185.
Milk and Honey opens six nights a week. Flights with Balloon Aloft followed by breakfast at Three Blue Ducks Byron Bay start at $289. Raes on Wategos’ tasting menu is $155; Pipit’s long lunch is $160; and Cadeau’s banquet menu is $85. Ochre Ceramics’ two-hour clay, coffee and croissants workshops cost $135 and run monthly.
