Nimbin, New South Wales facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Nimbin New South Wales
The Nimbin Valley and Nimbin Rocks in the Northern Rivers of NSW (aerial shot)
Nimbin Location in New South Wales
Population	1,607 (2021)
Postcode(s)	2480
Elevation	65 m (213 ft)
Location	779 km (484 mi) NE of Sydney 181 km (112 mi) S of Brisbane 35 km (22 mi) N of Lismore 50 km (31 mi) SW of Murwillumbah 33 km (21 mi) E of Kyogle
LGA(s)	City of Lismore
State electorate(s)	Lismore
Federal Division(s)	Page

Nimbin is a town in the Northern Rivers area of the Australian state of New South Wales, approximately 30 km (19 mi) north of Lismore, 33 km (21 mi) northeast of Kyogle, and 70 km (43 mi) west of Byron Bay.

Nimbin is notable for the prominence of its environmental initiatives such as permaculture, sustainability, and self-sufficiency. Writer Austin Pick described his initial impressions of the village this way: "It is as if a smoky avenue of Amsterdam has been placed in the middle of the mountains behind frontier-style building facades. ... Nimbin is a strange place indeed."

Nimbin has become an icon in Australian cultural history, with many of the values first introduced there by the counterculture becoming part of modern Australian culture.

History

Nimbin and surrounding areas are part of what is known as the "Rainbow Region", which is of cultural importance to the Indigenous Bundjalung people. The name Nimbin comes from the local Whiyabul (Widgibal) clan whose Dreamtime speaks of the Nimbinjee spirit people protecting the area. In recent decades, since 1973, the area has become a haven for Australia's counterculture.

Forests of Red Cedar first attracted loggers to the area in the 1840s, but by the end of the century most of the land had been cleared. With the Cedar forests gone, Nimbin was subdivided in 1903 with the land turned over to dairy farming and growing bananas. In the 1960s, the local dairy industry collapsed due to recession and Nimbin went into serious economic decline until 1973, when the Aquarius Festival, a large gathering of university students, practitioners of alternative lifestyles, 'hippies' and party people, was held in the village. The Festival was the first event in Australia that sought permission for the use of land from the Traditional Owners and a significant attempt at reconciliation. After the festival hundreds of participants and festival goers remained in Nimbin to form communes and other multiple occupancy communities, in search of an "alternative lifestyle". Nimbin in fact made legal history for the first ever application of group title ownership of land in Australia. Since the Aquarius Festival, the region has attracted thousands of writers, artists, musicians, actors, environmentalists and permaculture enthusiasts, as well as tourists and young families escaping city life.

In 1979, the Nimbin community staged the "Battle for Terania Creek" to protect the remaining local rainforest. As a result, the New South Wales government imposed a "no rainforest logging" policy covering the entire state, the world’s first government legislation to protect rainforest.

The population of Nimbin before the failure of the dairy industry in 1961 was 6,020. At the 2006 census Nimbin had a population of 352, compared to 321 at the 2001 census. The region's high rural population (35 percent of Lismore residents according to the census) means Nimbin services a surrounding rural area of about ten thousand people living within 15 km (9.3 mi). Nimbin had the highest unemployment rate in the Lismore Local Government Area in 2006, 18.1 percent. Nimbin's population at the 2011 census was 468.

Accommodation and attractions

A wide variety of accommodations are available for visitors, from campgrounds and backpacker hostels, to bush cabins and hotels.

Nimbin has a police station, hospital and medical centre, lawyers, real estate agency, service station with NRMA accreditation, restaurants, cafes, and a pub. The pub has an in-house restaurant. There are a number of sporting clubs and the bowling club maintains licensed premises. The Nimbin Neighbourhood and Information Centre (NNIC), run by local volunteer residents, offers visitors guides, computers for internet use, a small Centrelink office, legal advice, a nurse practitioner, a welfare worker, weekly soup kitchen in the adjacent park, and a publishing service for the local newspaper. Local attractions include the town hall, annual MardiGrass, markets, bands, walks to the mountains, and day-to-day activities from buskers to street stalls.

Other nearby attractions:

• Nimbin Rocks, a series of jagged outcrops, solidified plugs left after the erosion of volcanic dykes and vents, and Blue Knob, which are both landmarks for the village.
• Mount Warning (known to the Bundjalung people as Wollumbin, meaning 'cloud catcher') is about 50 kilometres (31 mi) away. Named by James Cook as a maritime navigational indicator of dangerous offshore reefs, Mt. Warning's summit is the first part of mainland Australia to receive light from each sunrise. Mount Warning is the remaining centre plug of a caldera which, 23 million years ago, had a 100-kilometre (62 mi) diameter. Its height was 1,156 metres (3,793 ft), nearly twice the height of Mount Warning today. The summit of Mt. Warning can be climbed via a 9 kilometres (5.6 mi), five-hour return walk through forested slopes.
• Nightcap National Park is one of the few remaining places to see the remnants of the Big Scrub rainforest.
• There are local creeks, water holes, and rivers for swimming.

Media

The Nimbin Good Times is a free monthly community newspaper, also distributed in Lismore, Byron Bay, and some suburbs of Brisbane and Sydney.

Nimbin Zone Magazine is Nimbin's bi-monthly magazine, featuring creative and artistic people from the village and beyond.

The community radio station 2NIMFM offers an independent alternative media voice and plays a diverse range of music and programming in Japanese, German, and the Bundjalung language.

Churches

• St Mark's Anglican Church – A stone in a gate pillar records: Dedicated – to the Glory of God – and in loving memory of – the gates to St Mark’s are dedicated to the memory of Ernest Andrew McClelland, who died aged 68 years in 1954. They were donated by the McClelland family of Nimbin.
• St Patrick's Catholic Church – This former church has been decommissioned and is now private property.
• St Stephen's Presbyterian Church – The current Presbyterian church was built in 1922. For 50 years, home missionaries served the parish until the congregation welcomed its first ordained minister in 1959.
• Uniting Church – The former Nimbin Methodist Church became a Uniting Church in Australia parish with the Basis of Union, when most congregations of the Congregational Union of Australia, Methodist Church, and Presbyterian Church united in the 1970s. The building was designed and built by carpenter Eustace William Henry (Harry) Stanger (1875–1953). Stanger was born in Bathurst, New South Wales, and was educated at Newington College. In 1910, he moved to Nimbin and lived there until his death. With J. W. Bagust, he established moving pictures in the town and showed them for over forty years. As a carpenter, he was associated with the construction of many timber buildings in Nimbin. He was a founding member of the Nimbin Methodist Church Trust, and served as a circuit steward. He was a member of the Loyal Orange Lodge, the first greenkeeper for the Nimbin Bowling Club, and president of the Nimbin Progress Association.

Transport

Nimbin is 35 km (22 mi) from Lismore Airport, with flights several times daily to Sydney.

Northern River Buslines operates multiple services per weekday on route 650 to Lismore.

Gosel's Bus Service operates two services per weekday on route 630 to Murwillumbah, with connection to Tweed Heads.

There is also a school bus service available for the general public on school days to Kyogle.

Gallery

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  One of Nimbin's many painted shopfronts, March 2008

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  Street scene in Nimbin, March 2008

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  Inside the former Nimbin Museum, September 2023

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  Inside the former Nimbin Museum, September 2013

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  Cafe scene in Nimbin, March 2008

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  The Nimbin Hotel, March 2008

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  One of Nimbin's several churches, March 2008

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  Community garden entrance, March 2008

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  Visitor and street art in Nimbin, March 2008

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  Nimbin, April 2007

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  Nimbin, December 2005

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  Nimbin Rocks, near Nimbin, December 2005

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  Welcome sign to the village, January 2007

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  Nimbin, September 2008

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  Nimbin Rocks in the Northern Rivers of NSW, May 2019

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  Nimbin Rocks, close-up in the morning sun, May 2019

Sister cities

• Woodstock, United States
• Tākaka, New Zealand
• North Cave, England
• Freetown Christiania, Denmark