Approaching Broadwater, we stopped to look at the sugar cane fields along the highway. Pulling onto a side road, we found ourselves in the parking lot of a church undergoing restoration and conversion to another use.

 We talked to the couple who own it and got a tour of the interior. The church was built in the 1930s and they were painstakingly re-creating it with original detail. The painting was all done by brush, many coats. The front hadn’t been done yet.

They are working full time on the project as is a labour of love, but they hope to have a viable business out of a cafe and gallery selling her large collection of Australian pottery from the 1930s to 1970s.

Here’s a newspaper article on the project.

They also explained sugar cane farming to us, since that was why we had stopped in the first place.

We drove on past the sugar refinery and into Broadwater. Like every town in Australia, it had a couple of shops on the main street, selling hot meat pies. We ate at a picnic table beside the Richmond River.