SYDNEY -- For more than 50 years, motorists on the Pacific Highway between Australia's east coast cities of Sydney and Brisbane gained a glimpse of a minority culture when they passed the distinctive white domes of the Guru Nanak Gurdwara (Temple on the Hill) at Woolgoolga, a small beachside town that is home to a large Sikh community.
These days, the coastal highway bypasses Woolgoolga, but the temple, which opened in 1970, is as busy as ever, serving 1,300 Sikhs who make up more than a quarter of Woolgoolga's population. Five hundred meters away is the First Sikh Temple of Australia, opened in 1968 in a modest brick building and replaced in 2019 by a much larger gold and white temple next door.
