Urunga ( ) is a small town located within the Mid North Coast region of

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, Australia, in Bellingen Shire. It is famous for its surf spots (reefs, beaches and mouth of two rivers). At the , Urunga had a population of 3,185. The town is south of

Coffs Harbour Coffs Harbour, locally nicknamed Coffs, is a coastal city on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, north of Sydney, and south of Brisbane. It is one of the largest urban centres on the North Coast, with a population of 78,759 a ...

and Sawtell and north of Nambucca Heads. The place name is derived from the Gumbaynggir word ''Yurūnga'' (pronounced Yu-roon-ga), which is derived from the word for long ''yurūn'' in reference to "long white sands".

Geography

There are two main streets, and both a

bowling Bowling is a Throwing sports#Target sports, target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a bowling ball, ball toward Bowling pin, pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). Most references to ''bowling'' are ...

club and a

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

club. A weekly 6-a-side soccer competition is held on Thursdays at the Oval on Morgo Street, colloquially known as the Cabbage Patch or simply 'The Patch'.

History

Urunga is a fishing ground, with

bream Bream (, ) are species of freshwater fish belonging to a variety of genera including '' Abramis'' (e.g., ''A. brama'', the common bream), '' Ballerus'', '' Blicca'', '' Brama'', '' Chilotilapia'', '' Etelis'', '' Lepomis'', '' Gymnocranius'', ...

being the main sport fish. The Urunga boardwalk, leading over the tidal Urunga Lagoon then out to the beach, was rebuilt in 1988 and extended in 1991. The full boardwalk was completed in 2007. In November 2010, a further section of boardwalk was completed. This extension finishes at the mouth of the river and has taken the length of the boardwalk to almost . Hungry Head, to the south is the only patrolled beach in Urunga. On 8 December 2017, the Federal Court of Australia determined that the Gumbaynggirr People have native title rights and interests over an area of land and waters at Wenonah Head, near Urunga. This determination resolved the oldest native title claim in New South Wales.

Culture

Urunga celebrates Father's Day with a "Picnic in the Park" in September and a Flathead fishing comp in November.

Education

Urunga Public School

Stepping Stones preschool

Transport

Urunga railway station opened on the North Coast line in 1923 and continues to be served by country passenger trains.

Urunga Wetlands

In May 2017 the Urunga

Wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

s were opened to the public. It features a wheelchair accessible 150-metre boardwalk and a 450-metre walking track surrounding the park. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the area was the site of a processing plant used for extracting the heavy metal

antimony Antimony is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Sb () and atomic number 51. A lustrous grey metal or metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...

from its ore, stibnite. Antimony and other heavy metals leached into the surrounding

melaleuca ''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles, bottlebrushes or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of '' Leptospermum''). They ...

wetlands creating what was claimed to be "one of the most polluted natural environments in New South Wales." In 2015 a $10 million reclamation project began that involved treating over 36,000 tonnes of contaminated soils at the site and its storage in an onsite containment cell.

Water quality Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water based on the standards of its usage. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance, generally achieved through tr ...

of the wetlands has returned to acceptable levels and birds and other wildlife have started to return since completion of the project.

Gallery

Image:Urunga1.JPG Image:Urunga2.JPG Image:Urunga3.JPG Image:Urunga4.JPG

References

External links

All inclusive free community websiteVISITNSW.com - Urunga
{{authority control Towns in New South Wales Mid North Coast Coastal towns in New South Wales Bellingen Shire