Run for the hills

Rural retreat Mavis’s Kitchen and Cabins offers terrific accommodation and food overseen by the majestic Wollumbin

Decades ago, this 10ha property with views of the mountain was a dairy farm

Iam pottering about in our cabin, getting ready for dinner, when I spy the chef heading into the edible garden in the twilight. He moseys his way around the raised beds filled with lush produce, from nasturtium to garlic flower to herbs, picking the finishing touches for the night’s menu.

The lightest of drizzle falls, just enough to make the wide, verdant leaves of the banana trees glisten. A kookaburra alights on a post, shakes its feathers and laughs. “Glass of wine before dinner?” my partner calls, stirring me out of my reverie and we head out on to the patio, the loyal mutt, Alfie, toddling behind. Relaxed? You bet.

We’re in the foothills of Wollumbin, the Indigenous name for Mt Warning, that hook-nosed mountain with an ethereal vibe in the Tweed Range of NSW. One minute the peak is jutting proudly into the sky, the next it’s gone, hidden by clouds wisping by. Decades ago, this 10ha property with views of the mountain was a dairy farm but today it’s Mavis’s Kitchen and Cabins, a tranquil rural retreat 10 minutes’ drive from Murwillumbah.

The centrepiece is a striking, doublestorey Queenslander-style home with wide verandas, where the chef Clive Bailey and team create dishes that make the most of local produce, and diners lounge about for hours, drinking in the fresh country air and possibly a cocktail or two.

The cabins, back operating after the floods, are dotted about the place, offering a range of options for families and couples.

Ours is the Old Dairy, a charming converted space close to the main homestead, made of weatherboard and tin with concrete floors. Its quirky feature is the bathroom, where the shower rose sits in an open-air corner surrounded by stone walls.

There’s a big couch and armchairs in the loungeroom, with French doors opening on to the patio, and the bedroom has a comfy, queen-size bed. Making it all the more inviting is that dogs are allowed inside, as well as by your side as you dine.

Alfie is alert to all the sounds and smells as we head out the front door to be greeted by a vast sweep of green, green lawn that leads to the tree-fringed edge of a creek. In the middle of the lawn is a large pond with a majestic fountain spurting on to water lilies. And there’s Wollumbin, unimpeded by clouds as the sun sinks.

We stroll to the restaurant and are guided by friendly staff to a corner table upstairs on the veranda, overlooking the garden that also boasts native trees, such as Davidson’s plum and saltbush. Party lights hang above Bailey’s secret weapon – a large smoker sitting on crushed stones in the garden where he makes wood-fired brisket and Sunday roasts.

We opt for the five-course meal, a $95 a head feast which can be paired with matching wines for $155. But try the

mojitos first, a zingy version with mint and limes from the garden. First up are Terranora oysters with a pomegranate (they grow them, too) and finger lime dressing, followed by thinly sliced raw scallops with homegrown acerola cherry, lemon verbena and some of the nasturtium leaves the chef was picking earlier. Next come flavour-filled flame grilled bugs, and then porchetta, rolled with saltbush and pepper leaf. It’s tender and juicy but rivalled by the accompanying, umami-bursting grilled oyster mushrooms in mushroom garum.

It’s a splendid meal, rounded off by a creme brulee served in a miniature, oldstyle white and blue enamel dish, with a side of coffee syrup made by local roasters, Bastion Lane. They’re at Uki, the nearest village, a pretty place where counterculture is king but the streets are filled, at least on a weekend, with the high-end cars of wellheeled tourists. Plus motorbikes, dozens of them, that are parked out the front of the Mt Warning Hotel as their owners grab a counter lunch after winding along the roads of the picturesque region. We tried some of the pies from the popular bakery in the old butter factory the afternoon we arrived (flaky pastry, good meat-to-gravy ratio) and the next morning we set off for breakfast at Tyalgum, a 20minute drive.

We fill our bag with eggs, sausages, bread and other essentials before driving back via a gravel and dirt road, through tall forests and along babbling creeks to Mavis’s.

We’d learned the night before that lunch orders on a Sunday end at 3pm so we’ve got just enough time for a kip before our next indulgence. This time we take a seat on ground level opposite the garden, giving easy access for a stroll between courses and a game of What’s that plant?.

The standout dish was a special: bonito sashimi, served with its silver side facing up and delicately sliced, on pickled onions with a light dressing. The king prawns cooked in cultured butter, smoked chilli and wattleseed have a bouillabaisse-like quality and the wood-fired brisket is tender and oh-so-more-ish. With most of the guests gone, we pop back to our cabin for a bottle of wine and head down to the giant fig tree overlooking the lawn leading to the creek. A brilliant tree seat has been built under the fig, capable of seating 15 people but, right now, it’s just us and the dog.