Simon Haslam
If you’ve been to the elegant Tweed River House in Murwillumbah, you’ll know the restaurant sits right on the riverbank, in River Street in fact – right on the frontline of the recent floods. But three weeks later, after digging out three feet of mud from the lower storey, the restaurant is set to reopen.
‘This old house has survived many floods,’ says general manager Gregory Lording, ‘We were lucky that the house was raised, 20 years ago, above a big flood then, and although we were never worried it would get in upstairs, it actually lapped at the river-facing balcony, and of course the water swept everything out from the storage downstairs. A 300kg ice chest just floated away. Like most of our neighbours, the entire lower storey of the house was flooded, causing property damage and loss of stock, but with the help of many volunteers, and the ADF, we have finally cleaned up.’
‘We were caught by surprise, to tell you the truth – we were actually planning to open on Sunday as the forecast wasn’t that bad, and Murwillumbah wasn’t even going to be affected by flooding. But by 9am on Sunday we cancelled, mainly because we were worried about guests and staff driving to us, or not being able to get home. Then the situation got rapidly worse – by the time the SES advised us to evacuate at midnight, it was really too late, the water rose unexpectedly fast.’
The restaurant had an excellent wine cellar, and many fine wines were washed downstream, but unfortunately they won’t be as easy to locate as the time the beer truck fell into the river at Murwillumbah!
Tweed River House is set to reopen on 1 April, and you can support them by rebooking.
Tweed River House
Ph 6672 5269
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