Mi casa Su casa

After a bout of wild weather at home, a well-needed reset was required, so we packed a bag, loaded the defender and headed north. Being freelancers, we like to take advantage of a mid-week escape, especially during off-peak season. An 8-hour drive to Byron is ahead of us, but who likes the highway? Anyone who knows us well enough could have guessed we took the scenic route. Enticed by the verdant beauty and crystal clear waters, we pit-stopped in Never Never River to soak and bask - highly recommend!

It’s common knowledge that Byron Bay is a melting pot of surf culture, alternative lifestyles and hedonistic pursuits, but that’s not the only attraction to the Northern Rivers region. Offering a scenic and cultural contrast to Byron’s beach lifestyle, you’ll find there is a lot to discover in the dense rainforests, historic villages, green hills and valleys of the Byron Hinterland. Logging, cattle farming, dairy farming, macadamias and also sugarcane have dominated the region, carving the hinterland into a series of small villages and hamlets connected by a meandering web of country roads, rolling hills, streams, rivers and abandoned railway tracks.

It's not uncommon to awake and feel like you're in a lucid dream with a spectacular expanse of trees and undulating hills before your eyes. A curtain of fog sits comfortably amongst the treetops. A slow morning; you’re seated on the couch, wrapped in a linen robe with a hot coffee in hand, and there’s a chirping nature soundtrack that can only be described as mental health birds. Could there be a more ideal location to read a book? Fortunate for us all, this dreamscape exists at Casas Secretas, a converted dairy farm with a long and interesting history situated in the heart of Tintenbar.

Casas Sectretas has been designed to allow you to disconnect from the modern world and immerse yourself in nature and slow living. The stone fireplace alone could tempt anyone for a stay in cooler months. A definite drawcard and deserving of separate praise is the bath. A bottle of red and a soulful mixtape set the mood for the evening. As night fell, we found ourselves cosy in the tub, wrapped in candlelight and blanketed by a starry night sky.

Come morning, we welcomed the golden light streams at dawn and allowed the sun to seep through space to wake us naturally. With floor-to-ceiling glass windows, doubling as bi-fold doors, the space is imbued with natural light and takes advantage of the natural elements, all year-round. A morning yoga flow on the deck was the ideal way to start our day! Unsurprisingly, Casas Secretas quickly felt like home.

While it’s easy enough to spend days on end being at leisure in the space or wandering around the cactus garden, we couldn’t help but explore the surroundings during the day. There’s a multitude of activities to experience from any direction. A highlight for us was a scenic drive through the winding roads and arriving at a nearby waterfall for a refreshing swim.
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Things We Did

  • Yoga
  • Waterfall
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    The ideal deck for a yoga flow....
    A large swimming hole on Emigrant Creek with a 15-20m waterfall....

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