Bush Nippers from Orange are travelling to the coast to improve their water safety skills as rural Australia grapples with an alarming number of deaths on inland waterways. There were 18 drownings in Australia between December 18 and January 3, three to four times the usual number. And more people are dying inland than on the coast. Seventy-five people died…

By Kia Handley There may be 274 kilometres between Lake Canobolas, in Orange in the central west, and Dee Why Beach in Sydney, but it hasn’t stopped two sport clubs from forming a strong friendship. At the inland beach in Orange over the Australia day weekend, it was hard to tell the two nipper clubs apart.…