Nambucca Heads identity Keith Davis has enjoyed a life most would envy – a lifetime spent living on the Nambucca River.

He has seen the dramatic changes the river has endured over the past eighty-odd years and continues to earn a living from its produce.

Few can admit they still love their job after more than half a century, but the Nambucca oyster farmer and fisherman said he could not imagine his life to be any different.

The tranquillity and calm of the Nambucca River was what many said was keeping the old fisherman going.

Every morning he takes his boat out and brings back a catch for his son’s popular seafood store, Davis Seafood.

And most evenings he spends his time opening hundreds of fresh Nambucca River oysters by hand – as was done so many years ago when he started on his first lease in the 1940s.

Keith comes from a long line of Davis’ who spent their life on the river... in some form.

His father, Rock Davis, was the son of well-known shipbuilder of the late 1800s Edward Davis – the Davis family were well-known in the Australian ship-building industry in the 1800s.

Based in Davistown, Gosford, Edward and his brothers produced many of the east coast’s steam ships, paddle-wheel steam droghers, ferries and schooners.

But in was on the banks of the Nambucca River that Edward Davis found himself calling home.

However, Keith said the shipping industry started to die when the railway came to the north coast in the 1920s.

So his father, Rock Davis, had little choice but to move away from ship building and into what is now one of the Nambucca River’s greatest industries, oysters.

“In those times it was tough living on the river,” Keith said.

“It is a different river all together now.”

“Years ago, when the ships used to come in, there only had to be a little sand spit and there was a dredger there cleaning it out,” Keith said.

“It’s disgraceful down there now with all the sand bars.”

Though it may have changed over the years, Keith said he has enjoyed every part of his life alongside it.

“It provided a good means of living, if you wanted to do the work,” Keith said.

“I’ve enjoyed my life – I’ve done what I wanted to do and I’ve enjoyed it.”