Phone and laptop on a timber table, soft rural hills behind — a modern community website for the hinterland — Long Flat’s website, rebuilt for 2026: fast on a phone, still grounded in the place.

Long Flat has had a community website for a long time. The old WordPress site did the job for years, then slowly became what a lot of small-town sites become: heavier to load, harder to keep tidy, and a bit frozen in time.

So we’ve rebuilt LongFlat.com.au from the ground up — not as a flashy tech demo, but as a practical community page that loads quickly on a phone in the paddock or on the Oxley Highway, and still holds the stories that were already here.

What’s new

Faster pages — static HTML instead of a slow WordPress stack. No plugin jungle.
The archive lives on — community, news, sports, and entertainment posts from the old site, cleaned up for the web (including stripping dead PhotoPin stock images that no longer load).
Weather on the home page — Long Flat conditions without leaving the site.
Local news headlines — Port Macquarie and Wauchope stories via Google News.
For visitors as well as locals — Getting here with a map, and a curated What to do page (pub, Kindee Bridge, day trips).
Local links directory — businesses and services, including the Long Flat Pub, schools, farm stays, and more.
Working contact form and clear Privacy / Terms for a modern site.
RSS is back — a proper news feed at /rss.xml (the old feed had gone missing).

Still the landmark most people aim for — the Long Flat Pub on the Oxley Highway.

Hastings River from Kindee Bridge — New photos from the district — including Kindee Bridge over the Hastings — sit alongside the older archive.

What stayed the same

The heart of the site is still Long Flat and the Upper Hastings: community notes, sport, entertainment, and the practical links people actually need. We’re not trying to turn a village site into a city portal. We’re trying to make it usable again.

A personal thread through this place

My connection to this area is personal. In the 1980s, my aunt owned what is now Ewetopia Farm — I spent much of my childhood there — and I also attended Long Flat Public School for Year 4 (fourth class) for a year.

Rebuilding this website is a small way of giving something back: keep the community archive online, make it easy to find the pub, the bridge, and the road in, and leave space for the next round of local stories.

On a March 2026 run through the district I snapped fresh photos of the area — including the Long Flat pub on the Oxley Hwy.

Public bar at the Travellers Rest Hotel with Great Northern signage — The public bar — noticeboard, locals, visitors, and cold beer on the Oxley.

Gyruss high-score screen on the pub arcade machine — Gyruss on the high-score table — old-school bragging rights.

Sit-down cocktail arcade table in the Travellers Rest games room — Cocktail-table cabinet — multi-game, sit-down style, in the Games Room.

Long Flat is part of the Farming Domains portfolio of regional websites — place-first sites that should load fast and stay honest.

Have a look around

What to do — ideas for visitors and day-trippers
Getting here — map and drive notes
Kindee Bridge — history and photos
Long Flat Pub — the highway landmark
About — a short personal note
Contact — tips, listings, or feedback welcome

If something’s broken, missing, or you’d like a local business listed, send a message. This is a community site — it gets better when people use it.