Qualla: Casino, New South Wales

Casino, New South Wales: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter1968 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. Once a year, the streets of a country town in northern New South Wales fill with the smell of barbecue smoke and the bellow of prize bulls, and Casino makes its annual case to the nation: this, not Rockhampton up in Queensland, is the real Beef Capital of Australia. The two towns have squabbled over the title for decades, and Casino is not a place to back down. Sitting on the Richmond River where the Bruxner Highway meets the Summerland Way, it is the hub of a very large cattle industry and the service centre for rich farming country all around. To the Bundjalung people whose country this is, the place is Djanangmum.

Read more: Casino, New South Wales on Qualla

Image: Peter1968 at English Wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

Casino, New South Wales: Beef Week

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ellis678, CC BY-SA 3.0. The festival that anchors the town's identity is Casino Beef Week, a sprawling celebration that turns a working cattle centre into a party for the better part of a fortnight. It has been a fixture for decades, missing only the occasional year, including 2007 and the pandemic year...

Read more: Casino, New South Wales on Qualla

Image: Ellis678 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Casino, New South Wales: Bundjalung Country

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter1968 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. Long before the cattle yards and the highway junction, this was Bundjalung country, and it still is. The wider Northern Rivers region was home to an estimated twenty different language groups under the broad Bundjalung umbrella, and the traditional custodians of the Casino area, ...

Read more: Casino, New South Wales on Qualla

Image: Peter1968 at English Wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

Casino, New South Wales: The Town the Railway Built and Forgot

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ellis678, CC BY-SA 3.0. Casino is a railway town in its bones. Its station is the terminus of the daily XPT from Sydney and a junction for services running north to Brisbane, and the rails are stitched into the local story, including the ones that were never finished. In the 1920s a branch line toward B...

Read more: Casino, New South Wales on Qualla

Image: Ellis678 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Casino, New South Wales: A Town That Plays Itself on Screen

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zack Kostevc at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Casino has a knack for standing in for the archetypal Australian country town, partly because it so thoroughly is one. The 2014 drama series The Gods of Wheat Street was set here and partly filmed on its streets, and in 2018 a Coca-Cola television advertisement used the Richmond ...

Read more: Casino, New South Wales on Qualla

Image: Zack Kostevc at English Wikipedia | Public domain