SPRING AT BUTTERFLY LANE

There's a fortnight in October where the rain comes through and everything on the property starts running. You can almost watch it happen. One week the paddock is flat and tired from winter, the next the grass is up past the knee and the cattle have to push through it rather than walk across it.

By November it has gone completely. The seeding heads reach the middle of the fence wire and the whole hill turns that pale gold-green that only lasts a few weeks. The cows disappear into it up to their shoulders. Stand on the deck at the right hour and you can see the top half of a cow moving across the paddock and nothing else.

The weather nobody warns you about

Everyone plans a Byron trip for summer. We understand why — the beaches, the long evenings, the sense that this is when the place is at its best.

But summer here is hot, and it is busy. Mullumbimby's main street in January has a queue outside the bakery and nowhere to park. The drive to Brunswick takes twice as long as it should. The outdoor bath, which is the thing guests write about more than anything else, is genuinely too warm to enjoy before about nine at night.

November is the month before all of that. Days run into the mid-twenties. The evenings are long enough to eat outside without rushing and cool enough that the fire pit still earns its place. The bath is good at any hour of the day, which is not true again until about April.

And the town is still the town. You can get a table.

What's actually happening on the land

The bush lemons finished a while back. What's going now is the macadamias in the tree line — this is macadamia country, and the flowering brings everything in. The bird noise in November is a different order of magnitude to winter. It starts somewhere around half past four and it is not subtle.

There are calves in the paddock. The horses come down the lane most evenings and stand in the middle of it, which is a thing you will have to drive around rather than a thing that will move for you. The snakes are also awake, which we mention not to alarm you but because it is true, and because they want considerably less to do with you than you do with them.

Mount Chincogan is at its greenest. If you are going to climb it — and people do, it is a proper hour of work rather than a stroll — November mornings are the window. Later in summer it is unpleasant by eight.

The bit we'd actually recommend

Come midweek.

This is not a sales line, it is just the honest answer. Weekends in the hinterland fill up with people doing the same three-day loop, and the roads and the cafes reflect it. Midweek in November the place empties out almost entirely. You can walk the lane and not see a car. The Mullumbimby farmers market runs Friday mornings if you want one day of people, and then you can come back up the hill.

Most guests book two nights. The ones who book three tell us the second morning is when something actually shifts. The first is still decompression.

Head to our booking page and check if your ideal dates are available