After a week-and-a-half camping at the Batemans Bay Pony Club grounds, Makayla Good and her horses are home at North Batemans Bay. Makayla, her mum Donna and other family members are "pretty good, a bit tired of sleeping in a swag that's for sure!" The group have been camping out with their six horses, plus other animals evacuated from Nelligen...

To many locals, it still feels like a new enterprise, but The University of Wollongong’s (UoW) Bega campus was opened in 2000 and more than 500 local people have graduated from degrees offered by UoW in that time. This week, over 150 people gathered at the Bega Valley Commemorative Civic Centre to celebrate the latest batch of graduates, 23 determined individuals...

A cafe in Braidwood made just $50 last Saturday. The council's grader driver Billy Halligan has a pillow in his grader just so he can get some sleep. Business owners are not seeing their families. School children have had more days off than days at school in the last two weeks. The North Black Range Palerang fire has engulfed more...

Realising Eurobodalla’s potential for a thriving local food economy depends on three things beyond desperately needed rain – cognisance, culinary creativity and cutting old habits. As bushfires force the intermittent closure of highways from Canberra and Sydney, regional communities are contemplating the drawbacks of a centralised food distribution system. Fraser Bayley and Kirsti Wilkinson of Old Mill Road BioFarm say...

The Kings Highway between Nelligen and Braidwood has reopened this afternoon after being closed for almost a week. Volunteers from the State Emergency Service and Rural Fire Service as well as NSW Forestry Corporation and Transport for NSW have been working day and night to clear trees and rocks damaged by the Currowan Fire burning north of Batemans Bay. Various...

With the Currowan Fire still looming in the landscape as a threat to all who love Batemans Bay and surrounds, a new campaign has been launched to strengthen and keep those connections in these challenging times. “With devastating bushfires threatening our beautiful region, it is even more important that our colourful new local pride campaign, Love the Bay, generates positive...

New fishing areas are being opened up within the protected waters of the Batemans Marine Park ahead of the school holidays as part of a plan the NSW Government says will give recreational fishers more options to drop a line and snag a fish. Minister for Agriculture Adam Marshall was in the Narooma yesterday to announce the five new fishing...

Police and child advocates have paid tribute to the victims of convicted child rapist Reinhard ‘Fritz’ Drenkhahn. The 65-year-old from Eden on the New South Wales Far South Coast was found guilty last week in Wollongong District Court on three counts of ‘Aggravated Indecent Assault with victim under the age of 16 years’ and one count of ‘Sexual Intercourse with person...

"My passion is supporting rural people," says Zoe Joseph, who grew up in Bombala and has returned to her hometown to live,  albeit with frequent travel to reach other rural communities through her business S.H.E Change. Zoe will be presenting in Bega on Monday (December 16), with an evening for women to stop, take stock and self-assess to find out...

Despite the wide brown land it resides in, Bega Valley Shire Council has voted not to impose water restrictions, pointing to the relatively strong position the region finds itself in. The recommendation before Councillors McBain, Tapscott, Dodds, Griff, Allen, Fitzpatrick, Bain, Nadin and Seckold originally pointed to temporary level 1 water restrictions for Bemboka village, instead, a motion from Cobargo's Tony...

Residents of the Eurobodalla’s northern villages affected by the Currowan Fire can put all three bins out for their regular kerbside collection tomorrow - Friday, December 13. To help with the post-fire clean up, Council’s contractor SUEZ will collect red, yellow and green lid bins at South Durras, Long Beach and Maloneys Beach. A spokesperson for Eurobodalla Shire Council says...

Forest conservation groups around New South Wales are calling for a moratorium on logging operations until the impacts of drought and bushfires are assessed and addressed. Nine organisations have written to NSW Premier Gladys Berjejiklian including South East Region Conservation Alliance (SERCA). The letter asks for a halt to all logging in public native forests in order to mitigate habitat losses...

Dry times continue to bite in Southern New South Wales with Snowy Monaro Regional Council flagging level 3 water restrictions for residents in Bombala, Delegate and Nimmitabel from this Saturday and asking the rest of the region to be extra water-wise. "Due to the prolonged dry weather conditions, flows to the Coolumbooka River, Delegate River and Lake Wallace Dam have decreased,"...