Local Icons – Twin Towns RSL Club

If you have visited RSLs in NSW you’ll know that most of them are small community clubs. Not in Tweed Heads, NSW.

With their history, closest from the border for Queenslanders wanting to play the pokies or visit other NSW freedoms at the time, you are looking at a six-storey high building big enough for 750 cars to park underneath! Their RSL members celebrated a club anniversary in 2018.

After a recent $20 million redevelopment, you can dine at one of seven restaurants, stop at four bars, with a huge selection of live music and performers, plus dance floors with old-time and modern music.

The views over Jack Evans Boat Harbour tops off your meal. The last time we were there, our family reunion party of 25 plus scored a private room. Very handy for the younger ones. It was also easy to find lounge areas near the dance floor that seated all of us.

Previous times I’ve dined there with mum and her friends at the Orient, and Heatley at the Gusti d’Italia. both are impressive but there are a bistro pizzeria/carvery, seafood and steaks, and more.

Our kids loved the ice-creamery at Bliss, some of them found the courage to join their mums and aunts on the dance floor.

Returning took us back in time to when we had special birthday dinners. Dressed in our best, we follow the loudly carpeted, round staircases up near the top. Dad would order the hottest curry and ask for extra chilli. He wasn’t satisfied unless he was sweating from the spice.

Go further back in history, Twin Town’s Public Park, bordered by Coral and Boundary Streets, was where my parents first lived with my two sisters, when they moved to Tweed Heads in the 60s. It was the location of a very popular 214-site old Border Caravan Park, which sadly closed. It is now a pleasant waterside park with toilets, boardwalk promenades over the harbour, picnic areas and playground. In fact, $8.5 million has been dedicated to stage one works around Jack Evans Boat Harbour, which has a safe tidal inlet for swimming, fishing and boating. Stage two plans include a an indigenous botanical garden and public art program.

If you like to read more about local heritage, take a walk in the past: check out www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/documents/bf/coolangatta-heritage-walk.pdf

Now to more recent history, Twin Towns RSL was also the location I watched my first live musical thanks to my eldest sister, The Rocky Horror Picture Show – what an education that night was! Years later, it was the first time I saw Crowded House perform.

So I am a little biased. The RSL’s huge buffet restaurant with 360 degree views also gave me a holiday waitressing job, years back. But there is no doubt, it is a fun venue. Now that we have rediscovered it, we’ll come back with the extended family again and again. Perhaps we’ll coax the fellows onto the dance floor, next time?

Also good to note, that although they are located south of the border in NSW, they operate on QLD time during daylight saving. Find out more: https://www.twintowns.com.au/

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