In the main street of Cobargo, the cleared and fenced sites where the shops once stood are like burn scars treated with a strange green ointment.
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In this case, the healing is going to take a long time. No plans are yet proposed for what will be rebuilt there. The locals have stopped looking because it's a reminder of that night over five months ago when their world was turned upside down.
Country folk are resilient by nature. They understand that nature has a way of dealing out the good with the bad.
This was bad. People lost their lives, and hundreds lost their homes. Many tears were shed here and in the cemetery just on the edge of town.
Cobargo was where the forge of the bushfire blew red-hot and many people, accustomed to fighting back, could do little but flee from it. Some didn't make it.
Here, too, the awful South Coast summer bushfires caused schisms and imagery which resonated around the country: an exhausted local firefighter refusing to shake the PM's hand, and a tirade from those whose anger quickened when the political entourage turned up for a quick photo opportunity.
Empathy that day was thin on the ground.
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It was a surprise to find that Cobargo's relief centre, set up in less than 24 hours after the firestorm, is still running five months on at the local showgrounds.
There's less food there now, more donated clothing and cutlery and household items. People are still drifting in, grabbing a few items and having a chat. Of the hundreds which were there before, only one remains encamped and is soon to leave.
Cobargo is a town of contrasting people. There are artists here, retirees, lifestyle-seekers, small business owners, tradies, and up the back in the rolling foothills, a conservative farming community spanning generations. Everyone knows most everyone.
The coronavirus pandemic shifted the focus away from the bushfires when the people in badly affected South Coast towns like Quaama, Cobargo, and Mallacoota still desperately needed support.
People in Cobargo are hoping post-COVID overseas travel takes a long time to return so they may get a better crack at some much-needed re-directed business stimulus.The early signs are promising.
A week or two after the awful New Year's Eve firestorm, the rains came. The scorched and blackened gums are now producing fresh shoots, and the rich grass of this cattle and dairy country has returned.
But high up on the ridges, finger-like trunks of dead trees stand like sentinels against the blue South Coast sky. Will that part of the landscape, hit so hard by the Badja Forest blowtorch, really recover?
"Eventually," the locals say.
