Day 44 Sunday 27/7/2025 Nambucca Heads, 11 – 19 warm & sunny

While out for an early morning stroll The Bridesmaid notices people pointing to the river, there’s a school of tuna out there.

Walking over to Shelly Beach, it’s a bright sunny morning, there’s a high tide, and people are enjoying a swim. While the fellas do their thing, we girls go bush, exploring the tracks around Wellington Beach and along the V Wall. As always, people are fishing, and one chap shows us his bucket of Luderick or Black fish explaining that they are a good eating fish.

It’s warm enough to sit in the sun with a bowl of gyozas for lunch before squeezing into the car for a little bit of exploration.

The short drive up through thick forests and the bucolic farms of the Nambucca Valley leads us to Bowraville. A small town of 1,100 with a one-hundred-year history of cedar cutting.

Being a Sunday there are few people about, though we can hear distant music. The main street is colourful, with timber shops and wide verandas. Although the shops have been surpassed by those of the larger towns, the pub and supermarket are trading, as are several halls and an art deco theatre. Going by the number of posters advertising local productions and that distant music, I’d guess that there’s a lively arts community here. There are two museums in town, but we miss out as both are closed today.

Following the Nambucca River back down to Macksville, we take a detour out to the Gumma Reserve freedom camp down near the river mouth. It seems to have made it through the recent floods, in fact the facilities have improved.

Back at camp we tart ourselves up and head off to the RSL Club for a huge and delicious parmie (parmagiana). The menu leaves us quite confused though. The accepted standard for pubs and clubs is to serve a parmie with chips and salad (usually a tired handful of mesclun with brown ends on the leaves, a pet hate). However, this menu offers mashed potatoes instead of chips for an extra $3! That gives us something to think about on the way home.

Accom: $46.00