Sawtell, New South Wales: Travel guide and things to do

Sawtell is a peaceful and rather typical coastal retirement and family recreation centre on the far north coast of NSW. It is technically a suburb of the City of Coffs Harbour which is an administrative area that includes the town of Coffs Harbour, 6 km to the north.

Sawtell is that area which is bounded to the west by the railway line, to the north by Boambee Creek and to the south by Bonville Creek. It is 546 km north-east of Sydney and 26 m above sea-level. In recent years its population has increased rapidly to over 5000.

The predominant feature and the raison d'etre of this tourist town is, of course, the pretty beach which lies between Boambee Head and Bonville Head. These two rocky promontories sit adjacent the estuaries of Boambee Creek and Bonville Creek.

Sawtell has a small shopping centre (with a very distinctive and quite luxuriant median strip that causes traffic problems), lookouts from the two headlands, a local cinema, some good walking areas near the river and the beach, a fine picnic area and playground near the mouth of Boambee Creek, good fishing (particularly for blackfish) in the creeks and the ocean, boat ramps at the two caravan and camping reserves, surfing, skin diving, attractive walks and drives in the surrounding bush, a good saltwater tidal swimming pool at Bonville Head, safe swimming at Boambee Bay, a BMX track, and the usual amenities for people who want to relax, such as a croquet lawn, bowling greens, squash and tennis courts and a golf club.

Prior to white settlement the Kumbaingeri Aborigines hunted and fished on Bonville Creek. They knew the area as 'Bongol Bongol'.

European settlement began when surveyor Greaves set aside 960 acres as Bonville Reserve in 1861. Two years later Walter Harvey arrived with a bullock team to retrieve cedar logs from a cutter which had been washed ashore on Sawtell Beach. He stayed on for the cedar and a small community emerged.

However, development was slow until 1923 when Oswald Sawtell decided to subdivide the land he had bought. The railway arrived in 1925, a post office opened in 1927, the first school was set up in 1928 and the Sawtell Hotel was licensed in 1932. The settlement was gazetted as Sawtell in 1927. However, when the road to the north opened that same year Coffs Harbour became the major local town.

Street markets are held in First Avenue on the first Saturday of the month with the Town Fair being held on New Year's Day.

Things to see