FF Tour - Days 16&17 Urunga

The view from our campsite at
Urunga Waters Tourist Park

In keeping with the emphasis of this tour - staying where we haven't stayed before - we shifted camp, further south to Urunga and the slightly dated but never the less delightful Urunga Waters Tourist Park. Located on the banks of Kalang River, what it lacks in the aging but scrupulously clean amenities, it more than makes for in site size and location. Our site literally backed onto the river.

Urunga was only a short drive over the Kalang and then along the Bellinger River to the town itself, located opposite the junction of the two. We met up with an old school friend of Sue's, Jenny Sewell, for lunch in a local cafe and then drinks at the near hundred year old Ocean View Hotel. The company would have been more than enough but as the girls chatted away a Sunday afternoon, my contribution was punctuated by a rocking guitarist/singer (and his tambourine playing backing vocalist) whose set list was stolen from the random play of my music collection: especially that part of the collection that ranges from electric blues to classic rock. Look through the photos below for a video sample of their work. There are lots of experiences I love to repeat, with a Sunday afternoon, a Guinness or two in coastal beer garden and some quality guitar licks, being high on the list.

The junction of the rivers at Urunga

The second day we were out and about finding out more about Urunga. In the morning, we took a walking tour with a retired gent who led us about the town and talked us through its history. There aren't a lot of the old buildings left, apart from the pub and the old town hall. It was a slightly strange tour, as we were given a folder of printed A4 pictures of old buildings and taken to where they used to stand, long since replaced by another building during the last 100 years ... sometimes, several times over. Who could have known that the post office had been located in four different places over the years? The old town hall is now hidden from the street by other buildings and additions but having grown up in Urunga, his stories of dances and other functions held in the hall were warmly told. We finished down at the shoreline, where the Bellinger and Kalang join before the short trip to the sea entrance. 

Urunga had originally been a sea port for the transport of the tall timber taken from the forests on the mountain ranges to the west, with the big red cedar trees floated down the Bellinger and then loaded onto ships. Its ongoing problem was a river mouth that was often either closed completely or two shallow for the bigger ships to enter. The logs and later local produce would bank up until storms delivered flood waters to flush the sand bank out to sea. Those days quickly dwindled with the advent of the railway ... which in turn was superseded by the big trucks of road trabsport. 

After lunch, we drove to the Urunga Wetlands, an amazing example of rehabilitation. What had been a natural wetland, was destroyed by the tailings from an antimony processing plant which was established there in the 1970's. Toxic heavy metals was destroying a significant paperbark forest and and its associated waterways, making it unhabitable for the creatures that once dominated the area, let alone humans. To make matters worse, it was right on the doorstep of  a residential area (across the road on Hillside Drive) and sandwiched between the big loop the Kalang River takes around Newry Island and the Urunga Lagoon. Long term, the potential for even more harm to significant waterways was an even greater threat. Naturally, under the environmental laws of the time, one of Australia's biggest mining companies just shut the doors and walked out, without any legal responsibility to clean up their mess. The land was sold into private ownership with a view to developing it but the cost was too prohibitive.

The project to rehabilitate the wetland came with the then NSW government purchasing the land, as once it became Crown Land, it came under the management of the Environment Protection Agency and they engaged the Soil Conservation Service to undertake the work. Starting work in 2015 and involving 250 businesses, suppliers, contactors and organisations, the scope of the work was massive. Earth works established a containment cell for the contaminated materials that could not be removed, timber and metal materials were recycled, monitoring stations established and more than 36,000 tonnes of contaminated materials were removed. The site now has a relatively short, 450 metre, looped walking track which takes visitors through the reclaimed area and includes a boardwalk whose decking is the equivalent of 2.5 million - yes million - recycled plastic bags diverted from landfill. It cost a lot but it achieves even more and in 2017 won the NSW CCF Earth Award. Beyond all that, it is a lovely place to walk and see the paperbarks, now living with their feet soaked in clean water and an ecosystem which can again provide a home for birdlife and filter and clean the water which seeps into the two major waterways. We had a very pleasant walk around this outstanding example of what can be achieved with enough will and enough money but were left wondering how a multi billion dollar Australian international company could avoid a responsibility for the $10 million price tag. 

Click her to see today's photos

The afternoon and evening were spent in conversations with neighbours, beside the Kalang at our campsite, as they dipped their lines and the clean, still air of the evening was heralded by a delightful sunset.

TOD Tour, Day 19 - Bellingen

We retraced our steps of a few days ago and returned up the Bellinger Valley to the town which is central to it, Bellingen.

Originally called Boat Harbour, the town became the dominate feature of the area because of the depth of the river at that point and available land. Cedar getters had been bringing the big red cedar logs down the river since the 1840's after stockman William Myles became the first non indigenous person to enter the valley in 1840. He was on a mission to find new grazing land north of Kempsey. Small settlements were already springing up Gleniffer on the north of the river, Fernmount to the east and Thora to the west when the first blocks were surveyed for the town in 1864. A police station, court house and the first public school were all in place by 1870, the year the name was changed to Bellingen and boat building had begun by the 1880's.

The Marx family established their orchard in those early years, on what is known as Marx Hill, just to the east of the town and it would prove to be an enduring business. By the turn of the century, Frederick Doepel had not only established a shipping facility on the Cahill Wharf for the areas produce and commercial goods like red cedar logs but he also had a ship building yard. The schooners Violet Doepel (1896) and Alma Doepel (1903) were both built and launched from his yards to ply the river trade. The Best and Doepel Sawmill was located on site, cutting the timbers being bought down from the steep slopes below the Dorrigo Plateau and in 1905, The Butter Factory was established near to the wharf in 1905 and its buildings still stand today, although put to turning the tourist dollar today.

Dairy farming is still the most common non-tourist commercial activity in the area.

After several abortive attempts to find a park to have lunch, we ended up at the home ground of the Belligen Magpies, the local rugby league team. If there is a nicer venue for country rugby league in NSW, I haven't seen it. The ground is lush and well maintained, the grandstand in good shape and a new canteen compliments a very tidy ground. The ground looks to be well served by arena lighting and a public address system and its little wonder that the club are previous winners of the Claytons Cup for supremacy in NSW Country footie in the working class game. My old kiwi mate, Joe Harrison, would be impressed with facilities, although he would have been smiling in heaven anyway after the Kiwis win against the Australians in the World Cup still stinging fresh in Aussie wounds.

We bought the one bottom, left

Our next stop was Lodge 241 Gallery & Cafe on the western end of the main drag, Hyde St. Built as a Masonic Lodge in 1912 by easily the area's most prominent architect, George Moore, it is a classic example of a three story Federation Building. Moore was also responsible for many of the early building in Bellingen, including the Court House and Police Station and gained a reputation which saw him work up and down the north coast. The Masons sold the building in 1996.

Today, the upstairs is a residence but the middle floor, on entry level from the street, houses one of the coast's most well respected and well known restaurants, galleries and entertainment venues. The dominant visual art on display is by local artist Tanja Karl. Born in Berlin in the late 1960's and attending the Ontario College of Fine Art, her work is strongly influenced by the French Impressionists and uses vibrant colours. One of her works is now in our collection - a fine work which reminded us of Brett Whiteley's lines when drawing the female form.

We had coffee on the balcony, overlooking the Bellinger as it flowed past the adjacent paddock, verdant after summer rain.

The next hour was spent on soaking up the streetscape, with its interesting mix of early twentieth century architecture which was the George Moore influence and then a later surge in building after the first world war, which is dominated by the clearly recognisable art deco style.

Belly-gen dancing

On one street corner, a girl in her early twenties was belly dancing, complete with harem pants and skimpy top but she was a long way away from our street corner. In whatever part of fairyland she was in, it was a happy pace and the guy behind her wasn't raking in a cut from anything thrown in her basket. She wasn't dancing before an admiring Sue, who just wanted to be able to move her hips like that without the ensuing lower back pain, she was performing in another time and place. Good luck to her but I got the distinct impression she was being worked over by both the dope in her system and the one standing behind her.

The Yellow Shed was next - a venue Sue has always wanted to visit - but it was disappointing. It had a fine collection of new books for sale, with an impressive array of Australian authors and an eclectic selection of CDs, especially jazz. The rest was uninspiring and very little of it was local.

Our last stop was at the Old Butter Factory, now a collection of businesses occupying the original buildings. If Lodge 241 had been about visual art, this was more craft-based and it must be said, all of very high quality. The staff at the cafe were friendly and more than happy to serve us a late refreshment in the dying embers of a Sunday afternoon as a storm approached. Afterwards, we went to the end of the dirt road to the unheralded Cahill's Wharf, which had been reconstructed by the Bellingen Council - we couldn't see it, of course. There just seemed to be a series of old piers but maybe the recent flood had carried it away or the signage was astray. The river still looked impressive and even more so when we walked up onto the fourth tee of the Bellingen Golf Course which ran from here, back up stream. One wouldn't wanted to possess a dying slice without a bucket of balls.

2015

1980

On the way back to Nambucca, we dropped in on Urunga, a place where we had a rather extravagant holiday in our first year of marriage. Poorer than our rich cousins, the church mice, we had spent our last cents on a posh flat behind the Police Station which overlooked the Kalang River. We had a week here, mostly doing what newly weds are famous for - fighting and then making up. We manage to find the old museum and recreate a photo Sue took of me all those years ago.

We closed down the day with hot chips - we shouldn't have but yesterday's were so nice - and a swim in the pool at our digs.

Limeburner's Creek to Yamba

Pirate Pete with his flagship
moored behind.

After an evening of hits and memories at Limeburner's Creek - courtesy of the local FM radio station and the blasting speakers of a car radio from one of the other campsites. You wonder why some people bother to come out into the bush?

Despite the noise pollution, we managed probably our best night's sleep since leaving Tamworth but woke to the start of what would be a morning of rain. Pack up was simple and quick and we were back on the bitumen, having escaped the dirt out of Limburner's, soon after 8:00am.

We tracked north, on route to Yamba and planned to catch up with Jenny Robinson at Urunga. Jenny is a friend of Sue's from the days of the brown uniforms and smokes in the common room of Armidale High School. We tried for an off the cuff morning tea but arrived too late for it to reach fruition.

We had been delayed by a detour at Macksville, which took as out through Newee Creek. It was here that John Gibbens, father of Sue, bought his first farm. We had looked before in the area to try and find the farm armed only with a few old photographs from Sue's uncle, Wal Gibbens. Wal had been a reluctant helper on the farm at the age of 14, joining his grandmother there to try and help John get established after his return from occupied Japan. Before that, he had been a Commando in New Guinea, among other Pacific theatres of war. This time, we had a land map from the council which Wal had obtained a few years ago, making his enquiries all the way from Western Australia. In fact, the map was in Tamworth and I was working from my head but we saw enough to whittle it down to two. Unfortunately, with rain outside, a caravan behind and no where to turn off the road, the best we could do was a slow flyby. Another trip needs to be scheduled and this time, before the end of the year.

Despite missing out on Jenny's always bright company, we stopped between the bridges at Urunga, beside the Kalang River, at a pleasant waterfront Cafe whose attractions include a great soundtrack of seventies classics and a pirate boat floating just off the starboard bow. The orange mudcake gave me indigestion, as did the tariff.

The rain was easing as we pushed on to reach Yamba by lunchtime.

There awaited that singular pleasure of going to pay the accommodation charges and realising that I did so two months ago! Bonus.

After we set up camp (including the most recent addition of a TV), we went into town for some bits and pieces. I'm not sure if the new bike helmets we had to buy were a bit or a piece but they were substitutes for the ones at home that I forgot to pack, kept, apparently, on the same shelf as the family maps. A definite piece of the action was the arrival at the Post Office of our new credit cards. These were replacements for the ones the bank failed to send us in time before we left ... the same ones I had overlooked at home and got cancelled! It all ended well, which is the main thing. We visited our chocolate overloaded cafe and I reckon I got as much chocolate in a mocha and complimentary truffle as I need for the rest of my life - so much so that my headache started to resurface.

Eventually, we found our way to the Pacific Hotel for our traditional sundowners but someone let a lot of tourists into the room and the noise was too much for my still tender head, so we left after one drink ... mine a lemonade!

TODAY'S PHOTOS

Home, 7:30 on the TV, writing and clearing the 103 notifications on Facebook which had accumulated over the past few days!

Pushbikes off the rack tomorrow and some touring around to be spoke-n about later.

(More photos later as the camera has flat batteries.)