Casino to Bentley

Starting at the Historic Old Casino Railway Station, this section features Australiana at its best. The 14.4km trail is expected to open December 2023, delivering a great asset to the region along the disused rail corridor ending at the Back Creek bridge in Bentley.

Casino is a reasonable size service centre located on the banks of the Richmond River. Catering to the beef cattle farming area surrounding it in the Richmond Valley, Casino is famous for its Beef Week which celebrates everything to do with beef farming, including the butchers and the cattle themselves.

The town has a lot of well-kept older buildings from the 1800s with an unusually large concentration of well-preserved art deco buildings from the 1930s. A ride around town is an option alongside the trail.

Leaving the Old Casino Train Station, the trail runs along the edge of town before heading across farmland, including fully operational cattle stations, before joining the hill district near Naughtons Gap. Here, the trail incorporates expansive vistas of the rural Richmond Valley with its beautiful grazing lands laid out around you.

From this point of the trail, you’ll enter a mixture of pine and native gum trees where the incredible xanthorrhoea plants nestle under the cover of big gums. One of the highlights of this section is the curved Naughtons Gap rail tunnel -  the second largest rail tunnel on the entire Northern Rivers Rail Trail at over 200m in length.

Once past the tunnel, you’ll continue winding your way northeast through stunning hill country until the track crosses Bentley Road. This is where this section of the Northern Rivers Rail Trail ends and the Lismore Valley begins.