Nambucca Heads, New South Wales

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Nambucca Heads New South Wales
Nambucca Heads, Photograph by John Catsoulis
Population:	6,121^[1]
Postcode:	2448
Elevation:	26 m
Location:	512 km from Sydney
LGA:	Nambucca Shire Council
State District:	Oxley,^[2]
Federal Division:	Cowper^[3]

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.^[1]

The town is located on the North Coast railway line, and is served by the three daily XPT services.

It is believed that prior to European settlement the area was inhabited by the Gumbaynggir or the Dainggatti peoples. 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.^[4] The North Coast railway was extended from Taree to south Grafton in 1915, but the station at Nambucca Heads was not opened until 1923.^[5]