Smiths Lake High-Water Trail
A group of Smiths Lake Village residents is working to connect and enhance the existing informal trail network around the shores of Smiths Lake. The vision is simple: a low-impact, off-road pedestrian path that connects the village's favourite places — inviting locals and visitors to explore and linger, rather than travel elsewhere for bushwalking and recreation.
The trail
The High-Water Trail is a 12.6km lakeside bushwalk linking Tarbuck Bay, the Smiths Lake Village foreshore, and the Cellito Beach Boardwalk. Graded 2 to 3, it connects many long-established foreshore tracks into a single, cohesive walk — currently in development.
The trail features multiple entry and exit points throughout the village and connects directly with a village loop trail network, making it accessible to walkers of all experience levels and multiple starting locations.
- Trail distance — 12.6km (Tarbuck Bay to Cellito Beach)
- Grading — 2 to 3 (easy to moderate)
- Entry and exit points — multiple throughout the village
- Connection — links to village loop trails
The problem with walking here
Smiths Lake is blessed with one of the most beautiful natural settings on the NSW Mid-North Coast — a languid coastal lagoon, rich foreshore bushland, abundant birdlife, and water views that stop people in their tracks. Yet for those who want to explore it on foot, the village presents a quiet frustration.
The village has limited footpaths, variable road verge conditions, and roadside vegetation that persistently encroaches on what little off-road space exists. Throughout much of the village, walkers are largely relegated to sharing the road with vehicles — a situation that can be uncomfortable at the best of times, and genuinely hazardous at others.
This is not a minor inconvenience. Without the foreshore trail, one of the region's most extraordinary natural environments — the foreshore, the bushland, the lake's edge — is effectively inaccessible to walkers seeking a safe, unhurried experience of the place they live in or have come to visit. Without the Foreshore Trail, the lake, whilst visible from the road, has been largely unreachable, on foot, in any meaningful or continuous way.
What the trail changes
The High-Water Trail addresses this directly. By connecting and formalising the network of existing informal foreshore tracks into a single, cohesive 12.6km off-road walk, it gives the village what it has long lacked: a safe, continuous pedestrian route through its most valued natural landscapes.
For residents, it means the foreshore and bushland become genuinely walkable — not as an occasional adventure requiring careful road navigation, but as an everyday amenity. For visitors, it offers a reason to slow down, stay longer, and experience Smiths Lake beyond the beach and the lake surface — on foot, at the water's edge, through the trees.
Characteristics of the lakeside
Smiths Lake is an intermittently closed and open lake (ICOL), replenished by rainfall and creek inflows, and periodically released by the mechanical opening of the oceanside sandbar when the lake level approaches 2.1 metres above mean sea level. This cycle of filling and release means the lake level and foreshore is in a state of continual variation.
Walking along the waterline is only possible during lower water periods, and even then the exposed foreshore presents significant challenges. Depending on location and water level, the exposed lake bed varies from firm, easily navigable sandy flats to muddy silt, exposed reed beds, and difficult rocky and bouldery shoreline — conditions that further limit the periods, locations, and opportunities for foreshore walking in any continuous or reliable way.
The High-Water Trail is specifically designed and designated to run continuously above the 2.1 metre water height threshold — the level at which the lake is mechanically opened to the ocean. By sitting above this line, the trail remains open and passable to walkers at all times, regardless of the lake level or season. Routed through foreshore bushland rather than along the variable water's edge, it delivers uninterrupted views across the lake without the navigational uncertainty of the shoreline below.
This is where the trail's name comes from. The High-Water Trail (HWT), rather than a marketing description — it is a precise statement of where the trail sits and why. Above the high-water mark, continuously accessible, and designed to stay that way.
The broader case
The High-Water Trail showcases more of the area's natural beauty to a wider audience, supports the local economy, and extends visitor activity beyond the peak summer season. It also delivers practical benefits on the ground — enabling land care, weed management, and the removal of abandoned equipment and rubbish from foreshore areas that the trail passes through.
The trail serves a broad range of users — bushwalkers, kayakers and birdwatchers — united by a commitment to protecting and preserving Smiths Lake's unique natural environment while encouraging sustainable, minimal-impact access for all.
Walking is Australia's most popular physical activity — consistently ranked number one across every age group from 35 onwards. The Australian Sports Commission's AusPlay survey (2023–24) recorded 10.8 million Australians aged 15 and over walking recreationally — more participants than any other activity, including gym, bushwalking, running or swimming.
A place this beautiful deserves to be walked. The High-Water Trail makes that possible.
Foreshore maintenance
The local volunteer weed management group meets regularly, on Monday mornings, to carry out maintenance, bushland vegetation management, and weed removal works along the foreshore. Meet-up and work site locations are advised each week, on Sundays, by group email.
To register your interest in joining the group — Click here to visit the Landcare Project
Sources and references
Australian Sports Commission — AusPlay Survey 2024–25. Walking (recreational) ranked the most popular physical activity for Australian adults aged 15 and over, a position it has held consistently across all survey years.
https://www.ausport.gov.au/media-centre/news/new-ausplay-data-released-aussies-embracing-sport-for-life Australian Institute of Health and Welfare — Sports Injury in Australia (2023–24).
Confirms recreational walking as Australia's most popular physical activity with 10.8 million participants, ahead of fitness/gym (6.4 million) and bushwalking (3.7 million).
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/sports-injury/sports-injury-in-australia/contents/sports-participation-and-injury-rates
Roy Morgan Research — National Sports Participation Report (2022–23). Over half of
adult Australians (53.9%), approximately 11.6 million people, regularly walk for exercise — making it the most widely practised activity in the country.
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9278-australian-sports-participation-rates-among-children-and-adults-march-2023
Sport Australia — AusPlay Top 20 Sports and Physical Activities. Walking has the highest participation rate of all activities surveyed. The average adult walker participates in 156 sessions per year, each lasting approximately 40 minutes.
https://www.miragenews.com/australia-s-top-20-sports-and-physical-activities-revealed/
Smiths Lake Village community project — trail content supplied for Villagefirst. Trail map image courtesy Villagefirst. Content compiled for Villagefirst.