Uralla, NSW

This New England town is buzzing with crafty locals and a burgeoning sustainability movement.

Story + Photos Kate Newsome

The old aircraft hangar is a veritable Aladdin’s cave. Beneath the curved corrugated ceiling are 35 stalls stocked by local artisans, paint makers, silversmiths, shoemakers, upcyclers and curators of furniture and tchotchkes, vintage or otherwise.

“It was sitting empty about 6 years ago, and I thought ‘I can do something with this’,” says Little Birdy’s founder Berdine Warne, who also runs the popular cafe, The Alternate Root. With about 100 stall vendors on the waitlist, Little Birdy is full of the creativity and resourcefulness that abounds in Uralla, NSW, and its surrounds. It’s the same ethos driving Uralla’s mission as Australia’s first Zero Net Energy Town (ZNET).

Originally from the Netherlands, Berdine was a cafe owner, visual arts and Indigenous language teacher in Bourke for 15 years before moving eastwards. “I think that whole perspective of life in Uralla was just my way of living,” she says. “Sustainable living and practices in business, and trying to really work on the environment as a collective – I love that about Uralla.”