Woodenbong (including Grevillia)
Small service town near the NSW-Queensland
Woodenbong is a small town of some 600 people on the Mt Lindesay Highway just 10 km from the Queensland border in NSW's Northern Tablelands. It is 798 km north-east of Sydney via the Pacific Highway (867 km via the New England Highway), about 145 km from Brisbane and 55 km north-west of Kyogle.
Woodenbong has the natural advantage of being set amidst some spectacular mountain scenery, including some picturesque waterfalls. The district is given over to dairying, timber, cattle, potatoes, maize and grazing.
There is a Family Fun Day in March and the Woodenbong Show is held in April. At one time an Aboriginal settlement was located here. Poet Roland Robinson, with permission from the Gidabal clan of the Bunjalung people, gathered their folklore and translated some into English verse.
Grevillea is now little more than a locality 26 km south-east of Woodenbong along the Summerland Way. The 'Keelgyrah' run was established hereabouts, on the southern bank of the Richmond, in 1848 by George Wyndham of Dalwood (see entry on Greta).
Grevillea was also the headquarters of a Department of Main Roads scheme during the Great Depression which employed 1152 men in local road building that was intended to open up grazing land for closer settlement and dairy farming. One of the roads was that section of the Summerland Way which now connects Woodenbong to Grevillea.
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