Your choice of beaches extends from Kirra to Duranbah, including the Gold Coast’s only north-facing beaches – Coolangatta and Greenmount – which offer ideal conditions for young families. This is also the birthplace of Australia’s surfing culture, with world-renowned breaks like the Snapper Superbank and Duranbah which host the annual Quiksilver Pro Surfing Championships and are home to many Australian and international world champions.

This is also where you’ll find the Tweed’s best entertainment and nightlife – at Twin Towns Services Club, Tweed Heads Bowls Club, Seagulls Club and all the other social and sporting clubs that offer live music every night of the week, gaming and a regular program of international stars on stage; at the pubs and nightclubs where you can dance the night away; and at a feast of cafes, restaurants and absolute beachfront surf clubs serving up your choice of Spanish, Greek, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Mexican, Chinese and traditional Aussie fare.

In June each year, the entertainment heats up even further with Cooly Rocks On – a ten-day rock ‘n’ roll festival that takes over the streets of Tweed Heads and Coolangatta with outdoor music stages, classic car parades, dancing and much, much more. The festival attracts thousands of visitors from all over Australia, many of whom use it as the perfect excuse to dust off the bobby socks, poodle skirts and Elvis outfits.

For daytime activities, head to the Tweed River where you can join a charter for some offshore deep-sea fishing, try your hand at catching mudcrabs and yabbies on a crab-catching cruise, hire a barbeque pontoon to explore the waterways or throw a line in from the river banks.

A network of oceanfront and foreshore parks incorporate walkways, cycle paths, children’s play areas, paddleboat and kayak hire, boat access ramps and relaxing garden areas, with the popular Make It. Bake It. Grow It. markets held on the second Sunday of the month at Queen Elizabeth Park in Coolangatta.

Following the river west along Kennedy Drive takes you to a string of great seafood outlets where you can buy oysters grown in the Tweed River, locally caught mudcrabs, prawns delivered by our local trawlers and a range of line-caught fish. At Birds Bay, you can get up close and personal with our seafood delicacies at the Birds Bay Oyster Farm or on a Catch-a-Crab Cruise through the beautiful Terranora Inlet. The network of foreshore parks provides an idyllic setting for riverside picnics.

Tweed Endeavour Cruises also operate crab catching cruises, picking up from Pioneer Park on Kennedy Drive. This shady riverside spot is now home to four historic buildings housing Tweed Heads branch of the Tweed River Regional Museum where displays of small boats, ship models and shipwreck artefacts are well worth a visit.

At Tweed Heads you’ll also find the region’s two major shopping centres with all your favourite national retail chains or you can stroll along Griffith Street and Wharf Street to browse the smaller boutiques, gift shops and homeware stores.

South of the Boyds Bay Bridge, the Tweed Heads buzz continues with more entertainment, shopping and activities.

A number of sporting and community clubs are located in this precinct, including the Coolangatta Tweed Heads Golf Club where visitors are welcome to play on two 18-hole golf courses. The South Tweed Sports Club also offers a range of activities for visitors, including lawn bowls, pool, darts, table tennis and fishing.

And your choice of accommodation ranges from four-star hotels and apartments through to flashpacker and backpacker hostels … and everything in between.

Just remember that one of the quirks of being on the state border is that, in the summer months from October to March, QLD and NSW operate on two different time zones when NSW turns the clock forward one hour for daylight saving while Queensland remains on Australian Eastern Standard Time. You’ll need to keep the one hour difference in mind when arranging flights and activities.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT: destinationtweed.com.au