Greg Hughes returned home alone on Saturday afternoon.
He walked across the lawn where his son Phillip had played frontyard cricket for years with the neighbour's kids. He stood for a full minute gazing at the colourful blooms left on the verandah before going up the steps into his house in Macksville.
Five days earlier, Mr Hughes had left the East Street home to join his wife and other children at his youngest son's bedside. Phillip Hughes lay in St Vincent's Hospital after being felled by a bouncer during a Sheffield Shield match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He died on Thursday.
The cricketer's mother, Virginia, had stayed with friends and relativeson the outskirts of the town after arriving from Sydney.
Macksville had been tense with expectations the Hughes family would return from Sydney over the weekend.
Phillip Hughes' home town had been a sombre mood since Thursday, the rain and dark skies adding to the sadness.
But the sun came out for the first time since Thursday and Macksville tried to put on a happy face.
As friends, neighbours and school and old teammates struggled to come to terms with the death, the annual Nambucca River Festival took over the town's main shopping precinct.
Stalls were strung along River Street as the broad expanse of water filed with speedboats and kayaks, an Aboriginal dance group welcomed the crowd and bands played.
But Phillip Hughes was never far away.
Soon after dark, Nambucca Valley resident Errol Noble, who taught the cricketer at Macksville High School, delivered a short speech. Then came a minute's silence and a lone piper played a lament.
"We thought about cancelling when we heard about Phillip on Thursday," festival manager Des Ryan said.
"But then it was felt it could be an opportunity to bond if people felt the need, so we went ahead."
Many residents paid tribute to their local hero by placing cricket bats outside their homes, a gesture repeated across Australia.
Mark Smith, 44, a school-bus driver who played for Bowraville against Hughes in the local cricket competition, put two bats outside his McNeill Close home in "honour of the best bat I ever saw".
"He was a little kid playing against men," he said.
"The first time I saw him, we couldn't budge him, so after three overs I said to the quicks, let's stop treating him like a kid ... we still couldn't budge him."
Smith said Hughes was single-handedly responsible for cricket's renaissance in the Nambucca Valley.
"He set the example by his talent and his humility. Hats off to Phillip Hughes. Great fellow."
A state memorial service is planned for the SCG, but it is on a simple oval behind the Hughes' home that the town expects a local ceremony for Phillip Hughes will be held.
Jya Welsh, 13, rode up to the oval on his scooter on Saturday morning and walked past flocks of egrets to the pitch where neighbours and his parents had placed flowers, single stumps and two cricket bats.
"He used to say 'hi' when I went to his mum and dad's place when I was a little kid," the Macksville High first former said. "He made me feel proud to come from Macksville."
On the other side of the Nambucca River, another first former, Sam Lenthall, was mucking around playing cricket in his front yard as his parents packed for a trip to the Gold Coast. Two bats were beside the letter box.
When Sam was 10, he won his most treasured possession, a cricket bat signed by Phillip Hughes and Australia's opening batsman presented it to him at a junior presentation night.
The Gold Coast trip had been long planned, "but we'll come home for Phillip's funeral," his mum, Jodie Lenthall, said. "Sam wouldn't miss it for anything."
Organisations and venues up and down the Nambucca Valley have been marking Phillip Hughes' death since Thursday.
That evening, East Street neighbours gathered on the pitch behind their homes for their own ceremony. On Friday night, the Scotts Head bowling club, Club Scotts, held a minute's silence before resuming the weekly raffle.
At the Bowraville Races on Saturday afternoon, flags were at half mast, jockeys wore black arm bands and a minute's silence was held before the feature race.
The chief executive of the Macksville Ex-Services Club, Judy Ward, said the club would sponsor a Phillip Hughes Memorial Race at Bowraville's annual Boxing Day meeting.
"It will be an annual commemoration," she said. "Phillip never missed attending the Boxing Day meeting."
