’S SPARKLING BEACHES

EXPLORE THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH COAST OF

Jennifer Forest Words and photographs

I grew up in one of the most beautiful places in the world, expectation wrapping itself around the town, as if waiting for except we didn’t know it then. The South Coast of New South something to happen. Today, the main street is busy and the Wales I remember had big, open beaches with roaring waves shops are open. As a former gold mining town, it has mid-19th and plenty of rock pools and lagoons for swimming or floating century charm, revealed on the main road and in the miners’ about on a board. We had the beaches to ourselves most of the cottages and churches on the side streets. The people on the year round. Sure there were other local families out in boats streets make me smile; it feels like seeing an old friend restored and fishing from the pier, but there was a lot of space to go to good health. around. The Clyde Mountain Christmas came but once a year thankfully, the locals would There’s an air of determination as we get back in the car for the mutter. Cars from Sydney appeared on the streets after Boxing trip down the Clyde, as it’s colloquially known. The Clyde Day. Sometimes there would even be an intrepid explorer from Mountain has always been approached with some trepidation. Melbourne or Canberra. The one set of traffic lights in town got Going up or down it was not for the faint hearted, or the a little bit crowded and doing the weekly family shopping meant novice driver. Serious accidents regularly continue to take place, you had to wait behind someone else for a change. particularly on the 40-kilometre stretch with sharp bends as we go up and down the . My family left this hidden secret of a place, as you do when jobs and study are elsewhere. I went back a few times with my family The road closes in as we move off the tablelands and start the and then with friends in those early years. It never let me down. climb down the mountain. The tall eucalyptus forest on either The coast was still wild and beautiful. But years passed and I side shades the road. It’s thick and beautiful in the way only lived in other places, walked on other people’s beaches, and Australian bush forest can be, with multiple shades of green didn’t get back to the South Coast. layered upon layer.

Plenty of other people did though and I would have these odd I am absolutely obedient to every road sign, and am pleasantly conversations with people in the most out of the way places. surprised by how quickly the descent is over. Millions of dollars About how the South Coast had the best beaches in Australia have been poured into new overtaking lanes, smoothing out or how they’d grown up on the coast too and one day they’d go some of the hairpin bends and enormous signs telling you to back because beaches elsewhere, they just didn’t match up. slow down.

So with these seeds planted and once again living much closer, Down we come off the mountain and the road uncurls itself. my little family spent a long weekend exploring just one part of Before long the first glimpse of the sea appears and then the vast South Coast. We leave Canberra, the nation’s capital, disappears through the trees, deep blue in the near distance. with tents and food early one Friday eager to beat the crowds Then the glorious waterway that is the Clyde River opens out who we’re told will be heading off too. It’s lunchtime and Kings in front of you. The wide expanse of water, with the tiny Highway out of the city is consistently busy but not settlement of Nelligen on its banks, was always the signal that overwhelming. we’re close now, not far to go to the beach.

19th century gold mining village There are many beaches up and down the South Coast of New There’s a lot of land to go around in Australia and driving really South Wales, which stretches from just south of Sydney right brings this home to you. We take a break in Braidwood, just down the eastern coast of Australia to the town of Eden, close over an hour out of Canberra. I remember empty shops lining to the Victorian state border. For our rediscovery trip, we’ve the streets of the little village years ago, and a general air of selected Depot Beach, 24 kilometres north of Bateman’s Bay.

3 Veram sed ipsos longe supra nam pla vitae cui. Eo et ad potest ausint clarae. Modi viam atra ii cera ea plus hinc.

4 Not far over the Clyde River, just outside Bateman’s Bay you were befriended and helped by the Indigenous nations, assisted leave Kings Highway and head north. We’re looking for a right across rivers in Aboriginal canoes and fed on Australian bush hand turn off Princes Highway onto the oddly named Mount foods. By the time they walked across Depot Beach, twelve Agony Road. This takes you winding through a spotted blue sailors had been left behind, too weak to keep going. At gum forest to Depot Beach. Bateman’s Bay they almost drowned several more men trying to cross the river. Some couldn’t swim and they weren’t very WATCH FOR LYREBIRDS THOUGH, FOR SOME REASON good at building rafts to cross the river. Further up the coast, THESE RARE SHY BIRDS LIKE THIS ROAD. the sailors were surrounded and wounded by 100 Aboriginal men as ritual markings for not following cultural protocols on It’s already getting dark as we pull into the National Parks entering country. campground opposite Depot Beach. It’s a well-equipped campground with showers, electricity, barbeques and a On the beach rainwater tank, nestled in the forest. Some campsites are The next day is deliciously warm and families head down to powered and suitable for caravans and RVs. Unpowered sites the beach early. Here away from the city, it’s a clear water are best for medium sized tents. The campsites are numbered beach unencumbered by seaweed or pollution. You can see and the National Parks staff are clearly used to managing large right through the water to the white sand below. The waves numbers of eager families. The whiteboard outside the office are perfect for body surfing or riding a board. Capable has clear, detailed instructions. swimmers can go out into the gentle swell past the break line and find an easy place to swim laps. The calm waters are also Camping with the wildlife popular with kayakers and paddle boarders, who we see over We rush against the falling light to put up tents, cook food and the weekend enjoying the gentle swell. In the waters around get to the beach. But our efforts are hampered by the the rocks, all the men of a large extended family go snorkelling determination of the wildlife. With just a few daypacks on the for sea urchin, a delicacy often eaten raw. ground, a kangaroo sniffs out our meagre leftovers and attempts to pry open a plastic lunch box. Despite his very When the water gets too cold there’s the giant sandpit of the nimble paws, the plastic box defeats him, so he moves on to beach to warm up on. Building multi-tiered sandcastles hanging around my small dinner preparations. My camp stove complete with shell decorations and moats running down to sits on a tree log, just at the right height for the kangaroo. They the waves is an Australian tradition. Beaches up and down the are cute animals but also very strong. I don’t fancy my chances South Coast are regularly dotted with families intent on if he does make a lunge for the food. Dinner is only saved by creating sandcastle masterpieces. an attempt to lure him away, which is partly successful. In the end, he gets bored at not finding anything to eat and hops THE AREA BECAME MURRUMARANG NATIONAL PARK away to search elsewhere. IN 1975.

After dinner we head to the beach to sit close to the waves As the mid-day sun hits strong, the beach heats up and we on the cooling sand. The beach is loud. I remember it being head to the shade of the forests surrounding the beach. The loud but the waves aren’t huge. Depot Beach is not a big wave National Parks and Wildlife Service are thoughtful educators of surf beach. The waves crash rhythmically against the sand. The the Australian environment, and there are well-posted dark silhouette of trees against midnight blue skies behind us information signs and walking trails. Close to Depot Beach hide the small collection of houses next to the campground. there’s a short rainforest walk which takes you through damp gully vegetation, pointing out the animals and plants along the IT’S ONLY US ON THE BEACH AND IT’S SO VERY EASY TO way. FEEL A LONG WAY FROM ANYWHERE Coastal forest It’s the stars though, which take centre stage. Without city From Depot Beach, it’s also easy to explore the coastal lights to hide them, the stars shine bright and strong, revealing bushland, which is what we do on our last day. On trails the intricate patterns and sheer density of them all up out around the headlands, we stumble across a stunning angophora there. Off in the distance, a lighthouse is framed by the soft forest. It is thick with waist-high green cycads and the tall glow of Sydney and Wollongong on the horizon. The beach straight trees with their pale pink bark. With views stretching feels familiar and welcoming in the night-light. far out into the Pacific, this headland is an undiscovered secret of the area. We have the trails to ourselves, just us, the ocean Yet I know not everyone shared this same comfort on the and the forest. The rustling of the cycads and the angophoras Australian beach that I do. I’ve just finished reading Michael hide the roar of the waves, and provide a different soundtrack McKenna’s book From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories where to our weekend at the beach. Just like our first night on the he describes the 1797 journey of five British and twelve beach under the stars, I feel at home in the Australian bush. I Bengali sailors up the South-East Coast of Australia. On route imagine this is what the Aboriginal people felt living on this from Calcutta to Sydney, they were shipwrecked on land for thousands of years. Preservation Island off the tip of Tasmania and this small group was shipwrecked again off their long boat on 90 Mile Beach More permanent settlers soon followed our weary British near Lake’s Entrance, Victoria. They knew if they stayed on the sailors in 1797. White farmers and timber cutters started coast and headed north they would find Sydney. The only appearing on the South Coast from the late 1820s onwards. British settlement at the time, it was a 700 kilometre walk Pebbly Beach, around the headline from Depot Beach, had a away up the South Coast of New South Wales. timber sawmill, a school and homes for 200 people.

It’s not the 700 kilometres of the South Coast which is the Like other parts of Australia, two very different economic and gripping part of this story. These are the very first white social systems clashed here. Aboriginal nations resisted the people local Indigenous nations met. McKenna tells the story theft of their land, and its resources. of contact, how in some parts of the South Coast the sailors Farmers and workers shot Aboriginal people. In 1830, The next day it’s time for us to leave the dense green farmers in the area complained of their cattle being speared. comfort of the coastal forest, the soft, cool white sand and Not long after musket balls fired by an overseer fatally killed the sparkling clear waters of the South Coast. We have an two men and two women of the Yuin nation. This war of early lunch in Bateman’s Bay, the seaside town where the attrition continued through the 19th century and Pacific Ocean meets the Clyde River. No trip to the coast permanently shattered the comfort of the land for its original was ever complete without a meal of freshly caught fish, inhabitants. straight off the trawler, with hot potato chips.

RECIPROCITY IS A KEY PART OF ABORIGINAL As we make our way back up the twists and turns of the CUSTOMS. BASED ON A CULTURE OF SHARING Clyde Mountain, I muse on the passing of time. At the fringes, RESOURCES AND FOOD, EACH NATION HAD STRICT the South Coast of New South Wales is different to when I PROTOCOLS TO GUIDE GIVING AND RECEIVING. lived there years ago. There are more shops and more WHITE SETTLERS SAW THE SPEARING OF CATTLE AND people. The roads are better and the campsites are busy. But SHEEP AS UNPROVOKED. YET THEY HAD NOT ASKED at its heart, it’s still wild, open and beautiful. The stars glitter LOCAL ABORIGINAL GROUPS IF THEY COULD USE THE just as brightly. The water is crystal clear and the sand white LAND ON WHICH THEY GRAZED THEIR ANIMALS. through the waves. The forest wraps multiple layers of green around you. The big open beaches we love so much in Australia are still there. South Coast NSW

Getting there: The South Coast of New South Wales is the 600 kilometres south of Sydney stretching down to Eden, on the Eastern Coast of Australia.The Princes Highway is the most direct route to Depot Beach from Sydney. Don’t be deceived by the short distance of 270 kilometres from Sydney to Depot Beach. This is a decent four hour drive from Sydney. The Princes Highway winds its way down the coast and is not a freeway. On the King’s Highway from Canberra, it’s a good 2.5 hour drive.

Where to stay: Depot Beach Campground run by the National Parks and Wildlife Service has campsites starting from $25AUD for an unpowered site. Powered sites and simple cabins are also available. There is also an $8AUD park entry fee per vehicle per day.

When to go: Average summer temperatures are around 25ºC with the hottest recorded at 43ºC (77°F to 109°F). Average winter temperatures are 7ºC to 16ºC (47°F to 60°F). The campground will be busy on Australian school holidays and all public holidays. The water can be cold for swimming in winter and spring but still great for canoeing and kayaking. It is much warmer in summer and autumn. The forests are ideal for bushwalking year round. Carry plenty of water in summer.

Look out for: Lyrebirds, eastern grey kangaroos, possums, sea eagles, satin bowerbirds, spotted blue gum forest and angophora forest.

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