The little village that lost so much but not its heart

He listened to the frustrations and heartbreak of fellow residents from behind the pub's bar rather than in a clinical office.

"I think most people have come through it fairly well, [but] everyone is different and had a different way of dealing with what's happened," the Cobargo Hotel owner said, five years on.

"People's experiences were a lot different whether you lost your house, lost part of your house, didn't lose your house, had neighbours lose their house, had a family member pass away or a close friend pass away."

During the aftermath, Dave was inundated with phone calls at the pub from survivors of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires that killed 120 people in Kinglake, Victoria.

"One of the comments that kept coming through was it'll take us 10 years to get back to some normality, all the buildings finished, everything cleared away," he said.

"However frustrating, that's where your headspace needs to be.

"Things are going to happen gradually. Life's not going to turn back to what it was straight away your living situation, infrastructure, your house. It's just going to take time.

"If people can be at peace with that scenario, they can be at peace with themselves."

While it had been five years since Black Summer, Dave said COVID more than likely put everything back four years.

He said it was due to the pandemic restricting people's movement, multiple delays, and increased rebuilding costs.

"Many people had the realisation they were uninsured or facing big rebuilding hurdles and couldn't wait, so they sold their block of land and moved to where something was more suitable," the 52-year-old said.

Looking towards the future, he said Cobargo needed to work out "what it is".

"I think the biggest issue we'll find in Cobargo is what we'll do with all these [new] buildings. They'll all be built back, but we need someone in them, utilising them," Dave questioned.

"There's not a lot of employment here, not a lot of industry, and I think 11 per cent in the Bega Valley are employed at the cheese factory, so it's a huge slice of the work here.

"But there are not the high employees you get in urban areas, and the fishing, farming and forestry we relied on when I was a kid are all in decline.

"So we've just got to reinvent ourselves as a tourist area, and can we do that?"

Zena Armstrong believes there are avenues to bring tourism to Cobargo.

It's something the director of the Cobargo Folk Festival has helped achieve through the town's popular music event held annually at the showground.

"We didn't have a festival for two years after the fires, and it's taken time to bring it back, but people are really pleased, and I think it's a sign things were returning to some normality," Zena said.

"That first year back, it was a gathering with the idea of bringing people together to reconnect, bringing the community together. I think it was a mixture of sadness and happiness.

"It was a weekend of really mixed feelings, but I think people left feeling connected."

When faced with a traumatic event, people usually congregate together, allowing them to heal through quality time, human connection, and one another.

But the pandemic following the fires had forced those wanting to grieve, alongside friends and family, back into their own homes with only computer screens between them.

"There was a lot of hugging with the festival back, a lot of tears, a lot of reaching out and reconnecting, and I think a lot of that is still going on," the Coolagolite resident shared.

Zena also helped to establish a folk club initiative called the Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund, to donate money directly to the benefit of the town.

As the president of the fund, Zena said $760,000 was raised.

A number of Cobargo projects, including The Triangle Tool Library, Cobargo Resilience Centre, and Rebuild Cobargo, were "seeded with these funds."

Even though it had taken a long time and "was slower than people would have liked", the morale of Cobargo residents had begun to increase once more due to the town's rebuilding efforts.

"But now they've all started, let's hope they power ahead and are all finished quickly so that they can get people in there and the main street coming back to life again," Zena said.

"Do you take the chance to do something that will carry you forward another 100 years and see it as an opportunity to do something creative, which is what they've done or recreate what was lost?

"While I recognise I miss those historic buildings, I think we have to be practical and plan for the future, and I am excited about what's happening there."

Cobargo's main street is a hive of construction activity as the village emerges from the ashes of Black Summer.

However, the ridgelines still bear the scars, and you don't have to look far to see trauma continues to run deep.

Chris Walters has been at the heart of the Cobargo community for years and one of the main shoulders on which to lean - or cry - since that devastating summer of 2019-20.

While the Cobargo Bushfire Recovery Centre has wound up, Chris was still incredibly close with her community and knew just how hard many were still finding it.

"If people have a very hot day, like today, a hot, windy day, they're immediately thinking this could be a bushfire day," Chris said.

"If they smell smoke, they're triggered.

"So there's all that physical stuff, but it's also in terms of the way they live their lives.

"There's still residual sadness about what happened to our community, about what happened to members of the community, about the losses that either they or their friends and family suffered.

Chris said everyone's "new normal" was, of course, post-COVID. But a lot of people were also living in a "post-bushfire new normal".

"Some people's new normal is they have a new house that they're not really used to because it's not their home yet," she said.

"Some people don't have a new house yet and they're still living in rented accommodation, trying to battle the powers that be to enable them to build their new home.

"Some people will never have a new home."

The volume of art and creative projects in the past five years is among the tangible examples of that positivity and working through grief together as a community.

"It's one of the really interesting things that comes out of disaster recovery is that creativity is really helpful for people's recovery," Chris said.

"So there's lots, lots more of that going on with people who are just learning that creativity doesn't necessarily only belong with artists.

"It's something that everybody can be involved with."

Home building in and around Cobargo remains focused on replacing what was lost in the fires.

Anecdotally, the population has remained "fairly stable" Chris believed.

"I don't know the numbers, it's just my observation, but I think the actual population is probably fairly much where it was.

"A lot of the older people who couldn't face rebuilding or whatever have gone.

"But younger people with families have come in."

One of the keys to building up optimism in Cobargo is the building occurring on the main street.

John, chairman of the Cobargo Community Development Corporation, has led the ongoing "Rebuild Cobargo" project, which was now coming out of the ground.

"Unquestionably there's a lift in positiveness in the general community," John said.

"The comments we're getting in the street are that it's great to see things happening, it's great to see Cobargo so busy.

"It's not just the main street rebuilds. There's also building on private blocks along Bermagui road, so the whole precinct has a fluoro buzz to it at the moment."

John said having the "moonscape" right in the heart of the village weighed heavily on people's emotions - even though there was a lot of work taking place in the background.

Now construction was underway, moods had lifted.

"They believed nothing was happening because they couldn't see anything happening," he said.

"As long as we keep coming up out of the ground there's a general sense of optimism now."

There was still a lot to achieve with Rebuild Cobargo, but no one would begrudge Chris and John for some downtime.

"I feel worn down by the experience. I feel exhausted some days," John said.

"Although I'm confident we're getting there. There are still plenty of battles until we cut the ribbon.

"But as far as we're concerned, we are trying to spend more 'our time' now.

"There's no question it has taken a toll, but it has also been extremely rewarding, getting the job done for Cobargo."