Step Inside the History of Coffs Harbour

Museum staff are inviting locals to come and enjoy the treasure trove of Coffs Harbour stories from decades past.

The fascinating history of Coffs Harbour is available free of charge at the Coffs Harbour Regional Museum and it will be open for longer during the summer months.

Locals and visitors will be able to visit Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 4pm, with loads of exhibits about the people, places and events that shaped the Coffs Harbour region.

“Whether you are a long-term local or new to the region, there’s so many unexpected things to spark your curiosity about Coffs Harbour,” explains Vanessa Brandy, Museum Assistant.

“Heading into the holiday season, we ask locals to consider taking any visiting friends and family to the Museum to give them a richer insight into the area. It’s amazing how many locals haven’t visited our Museum too.

Coming into summer visitors can relive the back-breaking days when fruit picking was the mainstay for the local economy before the transition to coastal tourism in the late 1950s.

The Bananas to Beautizone exhibition features quirky postcards, signs, fashion, photos and banana packing materials that will spark memories. Meanwhile in the Maritime room, visitors can explore living as a lighthouse keeper on South Solitary Island, historic happenings at the jetty and past shipwrecks from the coast.

“My favourite piece in the collection are homemade water skis from 1960. My mother loved water skiing up the Bellinger River as a teen. I also love the Edison Phonograph from 1905; a Radio from 1930 and John Korff’s telescope!”

Vanessa started volunteering at the Museum in 2018 and applied her professional photography skills to shoot historic maps of the Coffs Coast.

“I loved seeing the old maps with the original names of suburbs and streets,” adds Vanessa. “There are also over 7,000 photos in the collection you can now see online.”

If you are unable to make it to the Museum you can go on a 3D Virtual Museum Tour at www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/museum. More of the Museum’s vast collection of objects, photos and maps are accessible online on Coffs Collections at at http://coffs.recollect.net.au