Community

In 2003, Max Cullen and his artist wife, Margarita Georgiadis, walked away from the glitz and glamour of Sydney and moved to a run-down theatre out bush. Their former city neighbours relished the peace and quiet after living next to what was the 3 am 'local' for Cullen and Georgiadis's actor and artist friends. But ironically, the couple has also settled into...

A new $15 million sports facility in Cooma will provide an opportunity to enhance grassroots sport across the Snowy Monaro, according to Snowy Monaro Regional Council. According to a council spokesperson, the Cooma Sports Hub will provide a state-of-the-art precinct capable of hosting regional level events. The facility will feature a three-court indoor sport facility at Monaro High School and a...

Applications are open for the Eurobodalla Disaster Relief Fund for people who lost their homes in the Black Summer bushfires, with more than $319,353 donated by 135 organisations and communities to be distributed. Eurobodalla Shire Council has relaunched the fund’s first phase to make payments of up to $1000 to people whose primary residence suffered damage beyond repair. Eurobodalla Disaster...

When the Badja Forest Road bushfire roared into Cobargo on 30 December, 2019, four lives were lost, along with hundreds of homes and main street shops, leaving a community in shock. The town on the NSW South Coast had gone from a peaceful, musically talented locale to the front pages of the national media. By the time COVID-19 broke out...

The wheels are in motion to attract a new cohort of adventure-loving tourists to the Eurobodalla with the announcement of $3 million in NSW Government funding for a new nature trail network at Mogo. The Mogo Adventure Trail upgrade will connect Mogo to Batemans Bay with more than 80km of stacked loop mountain bike trails starting in the centre of...

The annual Aussie salute is in full swing around the region, with flies and mosquitoes heralding the return of the warmer months with their distinctive buzz. Despite their important ecological role, there aren't too many of us who welcome the return of these pesky little blighters – and this year they seem to be more prolific than ever. However, Dr David...

Snowy Monaro Regional Council has written to the Office of Local Government (OLG) after residents received 'harshly worded' letters about annual permit renewals for non-desexed cats and restricted or dangerous dogs. Residents who received correspondence about changes to annual permit payments under the Companion Animals Act 1998 say the letters came after the 1 October payment cut-off. "Council is aware...

Eurobodalla Shire Council has launched a virtual postcard campaign (vPostcard), which local residents can use to encourage family and friends to visit. The postcards showcase some of the shire residents' favourite places and businesses, and people in the Eurobodalla will be able to submit their own photographs to grow the collection during the next year. Eurobodalla Shire Council will be...

Fit, playing alongside his favourite music-loving friends and in the closing chapter of his engineering career, Ian Aldridge was enjoying life in Goulburn. Then niggling discomfort in his back after exercising at the gym became more annoying. Later, while he stood in queues overseas on holidays, it became worse. On his return home, he went to a doctor. Blood tests...

Bushfire survivors from the NSW town of Nerriga tell the story of the Black Summer bushfires in an original, locally produced, half-hour radio documentary series which will be launched at Nerriga Hotel on Saturday, 17 October. The documentary, the first in a planned series of six stories from award-winning filmmaker Clare Young, from Braidwood, and producer Rose Ricketson, from Majors Creek,...

"It's in that first instant when I wake from my disjointed sleep, wondering where the hell I am, it just gives me the bloody creeps." This is the first line of a poem by Jim Hughes, whose home at Catalina, near Batemans Bay on the NSW South Coast, was destroyed by bushfire on New Year’s Eve 2019. Jim is a school...

There’s a running joke among locals that you won’t find a bigger town than Bigga despite its population’s of just 245. And there is one thing in which this bush community, two hours from Canberra, punches above its weight. Across the road from the Federal Hotel, in a refurbished tin shed, is Australia’s largest bottle opener collection. Dennis Harrison is...

Never has so little time meant so much to the people of Tumbarumba, who are hellbent on getting their shire back. With just three weeks remaining until the public inquiry into the demerger proposal affecting Snowy Valleys Council, the call has echoed far and wide for residents to not only make a submission but be heard when November 3-5 rolls...