In search of the perfect wave, Hank Vann makes a nostalgia-fuelled trip to the south coast of NSW.
I hadn’t been to the South Coast of New South Wales since I was a teenager growing up in Wollongong when I’d embark on ‘surfaris’ down that way, looking for the perfect wave. I’m pleased to say that the waves, perfect or otherwise, are still there in great abundance. A few days in Huskisson, on pristine Jervis Bay, set the tone. It’s a lovely town, where the Currambene Creek empties into the bay, and is home to the Lady Denham Maritime Museum, a must-see attraction. How a dedicated band of volunteers managed to save and restore a decommissioned wooden Sydney ferry, take it back to where she was built in 1911, then manoeuvre it up the creek and onto the museum site is a story of truly heroic proportions. The world-class collections of cutlasses and centuries-old maritime navigational instruments also has to be seen to be believed.
My next stop was the coastline around Ulladulla, of which I retained somewhat distant memories of fine beaches. Some online reconnaissance of the area convinced me to stay in Milton, a small, well-preserved, vibrant town, just inland from the coast, for both economic and aesthetic reasons. Milton’s showgrounds offer powered sites, a dump point, toilets and showers, but I stayed in a caravan park in a wooded dell just down the road, where families of kangaroos weren’t snobbish at all. Milton itself rewards relaxed rambling with excellent cafés, preserved buildings, a good pub, and interesting shops, but for me, the real bonus was the beach accessibility. Within a five minute drive you reach stunning, sandy beaches fringing cool, clear ocean. For instance, at the northernmost end of Mollymook Beach I could park my bus right alongside the strand, take a refreshing dip, then sit back with a coffee whilst watching whales frolicking happily a few hundred metres from shore. It was so unexpected - one usually needs to have booked passage on some manner of cruise ship to spot whales this close - that I came over all poetic and penned a little piece called ‘Flukes of Nature’.
Bannisters Head, Mollymook
At the far southern end, the graceful curves of the Mollymook Golf Club, with its floor to ceiling glass windows, offers stunning vistas of coastline over cold refreshment. The nearby Surf Club has a pleasant outdoor café, from which to survey the surf. Ulladulla, just over the hill south of Mollymook, is of interest due to its delightful harbour still sheltering working fishing boats. All along this majestic coastline are reminders, on tastefully presented historic markers, of the story of early settlement, which, in the days preceding any sort of road network, relied almost entirely on coastal shipping. The ready availability of suitable timber saw the rise of a most skilful boat-building industry. There were gentlemen of such expertise they could design ships on spec, draw out the plans, gather the appropriate timber from the forests, bullock cart it down to the beach, and then build it. These weren’t just dinghies either, they were ships big enough to trade goods up and down the coast between Sydney and the ports of the South Coast. An interesting piece of information that I would never have known, is that many of the rock walls lining inlets, creeks, and harbours in this part of the world, consist of ballast, carried by coastal ships in those early days, which were dumped so as to take onboard their cargo of timber. Even though the craft of shipbuilding is no longer so prominent, it is heartening to know that working boats still ply their trade along this part of the coast.
I hung around for a week and although the Friday night concert at the faithfully restored Milton Theatre was sold out, I found musical solace on the Sunday afternoon at an open mike jam session, held in the lounge of the well-appointed Star Hotel. A couple of motivated guys of a similar vintage to myself had a PA system set up and were happy to accommodate an out of town minstrel like myself in delivering a few tunes. A very entertaining afternoon of relaxed music making. These gents host this event every two weeks and it is well worth your time to pop in, if in the area.
The Lady Denman in Jervis Bay Maritme Museum, Huskisson
From there, I based myself for a few weeks at the Tomaga River Holiday Park, which, as the name implies, borders a lazy bend in the beautiful mangrove-fringed tidal river. Situated roughly halfway between the larger towns of Batemans Bay and Moruya, it is the perfect location to explore the many scenic coves and beaches that seem to present themselves at every bend in the road that hugs the coastline. Malua Bay, with its stunning, upthrust rock strata cliff faces is great for an early morning dip in the (still quite bracing) briny. Nearby Mackenzie’s Beach looks to have come straight out of central casting for snug, idyllic, photogenic bays. Batemans Bay, being a larger burgh, offers shopping if needed and a scenic boardwalk alongside the impressive Clyde River. The afternoon I was there, a most unusual bank of sea mist was creeping in off the ocean, swallowing up the far riverside and veiling the iron towers of the river drawbridge in swirling wafts of fog. Such sea mist is most commonly experienced early in the morning and tends to dissipate as soon as the sun muscles in, so to see such a prolific and dense pea soup roll in and persist until late afternoon was cause for some excitement.
The heritage town of Mogo.
On a rainy day (of which there were several during my stay) a short drive to the village of Mogo, just inland, is a rewarding day trip. There is a zoo just out from the town which would entertain the kiddies, but the main action is the several hundred metres of attractive shops and cafés that line both sides of the Princes Highway. Among them you’ll find emporiums in which to get truly lost, as your senses are dazzled by the diversity of colourful goods on offer. At one, named ‘The Collective’ due to it being a grouping, under one roof, of various small enterprises, I strayed for some time into reverie and nostalgia, thumbing through the vast collection of vinyl records on offer. A larger budget coupled with ample storage would have precipitated the purchase of quite a parcel of those LPs. Further down the road, in the welcoming, musty atmosphere of a funky bookstore (yes, there are still book boutiques in existence), an enquiry with the knowledgeable proprietors produced a copy of a tome, long out of print, for which I had been scouring shelves for quite some time. Further back from the main road is a rustic complex of slab huts and sheds, incorporating accommodation - with a gold mining theme - where it is even possible to pan for gold.
Bannisters Head, Mollymook
But now, after three days of rain, the sun has come blazing back into a clear blue sky and I’m off to pick a bay for a body surf.
