Qualla: Coffs Harbour

Coffs Harbour: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A sea captain named the place by accident, then a surveyor misspelled it. In 1847 the shipbuilder John Korff took shelter from a storm in the lee of the islands here and called the anchorage Korff's Harbour. When a Crown surveyor reserved the land in 1861, he wrote down "Coff" instead, and the error stuck. Long before either man arrived, this was Gumbaynggirr country, and it still is. The Gumbaynggirr have lived along this coast for thousands of years, and their name for the harbour translates as "big moon." Today Coffs Harbour is a city of around 78,000 where the green wall of the Great Dividing Range comes down to meet the surf, and a thirteen-metre fibreglass banana announces your arrival from the highway.

Read more: Coffs Harbour on Qualla

Coffs Harbour: The Banana That Started It All

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1964 a banana grower named John Landi wanted passing traffic to stop at his roadside stall. He had heard of a Big Pineapple in Hawaii and figured something enormous would do the trick. Builder Alan Harvey began work in September of that year and finished in three months; the B...

Read more: Coffs Harbour on Qualla

Coffs Harbour: The Longest Timber Jetty

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Before the highway, the sea did the heavy lifting. Timber felled in the ranges came down to the coast and out along the Coffs Harbour Jetty, a long timber wharf where coastal steamers loaded cargo bound for Sydney. When it was built in the nineteenth century, it was the longest c...

Read more: Coffs Harbour on Qualla

Coffs Harbour: Giidany Miirlarl, the Moon Sacred Place

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A breakwater walk leads out to Muttonbird Island, and to the Gumbaynggirr it is Giidany Miirlarl, the Moon Sacred Place. In their Lore, the Moon Man came here to rest and heal after battle, carried to the island by the Plant People, whose generosity was rewarded with eternal life...

Read more: Coffs Harbour on Qualla

Coffs Harbour: A Marine Park and a Mountain Coast

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Offshore lie the Solitary Islands, scattered specks of rock where the cool currents of the south meet the warm tropical flow from the north. The mixing produces a marine park of unusual richness, where temperate kelp and tropical coral share the same water and divers surface grin...

Read more: Coffs Harbour on Qualla