Lineside Liaisons #23 Ulong

This surviving little station building in the middle of nowhere is at Ulong, on the old Dorrigo branchline.

Tucked away in the hills of the Orara Valley on the New South Wales north coast, you'll find the abandoned branch line that once climbed west to the town of Dorrigo. Closed in 1972, the Dorrigo branch today has succumbed to the advances of nature, with many sections of the 1924 railway line completely covered by overgrowth. Halfway up the mountain at the tiny town of Ulong, (population just 131), the still standing station building lies hidden off a narrow, dusty road that is skirted by a string of rusting railway wagons, some with trees growing up between them. Although an almost impossible former railway station to find, the sight was enough to inspire the poem Too long in Ulong in my book Last Train to Grafton. Part poetry, part photographic journey through our disappearing railway past, Ulong was just one of the many abandoned railway stations I explored between the Queensland border and the mountain town of Dorrigo.

Taken from the book Last Train to Grafton, available direct here

See also; Glenreagh: Ghosts of railways past