Travel over water also extended to local journeys on vessels suited to the shallow drafts of rivers and creeks.

One of these vessels was called a drogher. These were originally herring and mackerel boats used around the coasts of Holland and France. They were a blunt-ended, flat-bottomed river boat with plenty of deck space. On board was a room to dry the catch; hence, their name drogher, which is Dutch for drier.

The drogher was usually powered by steam and propelled by paddle wheels. They were a common vessel in eastern Australia and can be credited with opening up the east coast for timber, farming and commerce.

An article from the Nambucca Guardian in 1993 quotes an elderly Stephen McPherson of Bowraville on drogher use for the trip from Bowraville to Nambucca Heads. He told of the picnic trips that would leave early at 8am and arrive just in time for lunch before turning around again for the trip home.

"In those days we had no railway. The boats would load at a wharf at Bowraville and travel at about three or four miles per hour," he said.

The droghers also transported logs, dairy products and general merchandise. Logs were straddled sideways across the droghers and craft coming up the river were forced to the bank to let them pass. The logs were then unloaded at Gordon Park to await loading on the coastal run ships.

The Bowraville Folk Museum has a model of a drogher on display.

Boat transport was also used for funerals. The Blackbutt Cemetery west of Macksville was in use from the mid-1800s until 1911 and was long only accessible for coffins by river transport. The cortege of coffin, mourning relatives and friends made an impressive sight as they sailed by.

Other more cheerful uses were those for excursion trips to various centres. The boat Pacific was owned by Mr Ewen Kennedy and used for leisure transport. A photo of the boat on the river at Macksville shares a backdrop of the hill where the ambulance station is now situated.

The Nambucca River from the entrance to the hinterland was in fact a bustling place with many wharves built along the river's banks. Often these wharves reflected the names of pioneers, as in Bradley's Wharf or Frank's Wharf, which were built to aid the getting of produce to markets. Farmers without their own wharves would bring their produce by cart. Frank's Wharf was solidly built and measured about four metres by two metres. Remnants of this wharf and others along the river can still be seen today.

The Nambucca District News in 1950 paints a picture of the use of the river and its hardworking residents:

"Almost every Saturday for years two of the Welsh girls would row with their father seventeen miles downriver to Nambucca Heads, taking butter, bacon and vegetables to the sawmills and settlement there. The same day, they would row the seventeen miles home again.

"Down at the Heads, they sold the butter for 3d or 4d a pound, bacon for 2d a pound and cabbages 1d.

"There were no roads in the Nambucca district then. The river was the only highway."