Nambucca Heads

Postcode: 2448

Nambucca Heads is a town on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales, Australia in Nambucca Shire. It is a holiday and retirement centre located on a ridge north of the estuary of the Nambucca River near the Pacific Highway, which now bypasses it. Its 2001 population was 6,121, including 363 (5.9%) indigenous persons and 5,034 (82.2%) Australian-born persons in the Shire. The town is located on the North Coast railway line, and is served by the three daily XPT services. Europeans may have explored the area in 1818, and John Oxley surveyed the area in 1820.

The cutting of Australian red cedar had started in the area by 1842. It is believed that the first house was built in 1867, when about 50 people had settled in the valley to cut cedar or raise corn. The site of the town was surveyed in 1874 and the first hotel and school were both established in 1884. It was proclaimed a village in 1885. The North Coast railway was extended from Taree to south Grafton in 1915, but the station at Nambucca Heads was not opened until 1923.

The current population of Nambucca Heads is around 6000. The major local industries include tourism, abattoirs, timber and primary industries such as beef cattle, dairying, bananas, forestry, fishing, oyster farming and the retail and service sectors. There is also a growing engineering and small manufacturing sector. Before European settlement the Nambucca area was inhabited by the Gumbaynggir and/or the Dainggatti peoples. Although details are unavailable it seems clear that the incompatibility of cultures, aims and practices triggered conflict fatal to members of both groups although it is readily apparent which party came off worst in the long run.

The first Europeans to encounter the Nambucca River were probably a party who, in 1818, set off from Sydney in search of convicts who had stolen a boat from Sydney Harbour. Explorer John Oxley surveyed the estuary in 1820. The word 'Nambucca' derives from a Gumbaynggir word said to mean 'entrance to the waters' or 'crooked river'. In 1886 Baillier's Gazette described the river as 'a fine mountain stream flowing through low swampy country, well timbered with cedar and other valuable woods. It falls into the ocean by a narrow rocky channel about fourteen miles north of Trial Bay and is navigable for small vessels that trade there for cedar, the only export'.

Cedar-getting was under way on the Nambucca River by 1842, although the dangerous sand bar at the river mouth caused major headaches until the end of the century for those seeking to transport their produce to markets. There were a number of shipwrecks, and vessels were sometimes left stranded at the harbour for months at a time. Consequently, in the early days, logs were floated down-river by raft then hauled along the beach by drays to the Macleay River where they were picked up by ocean-going craft.

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