The track over the Clyde Mountain was built mid 1850's. Ships landed passengers and supplies and returned with cargoes of wool, gold, timber and produce for Sydney. By 1860 Nelligen boasted a large warehouse, four hotels, two stores, two blacksmiths, baker and a police watchhouse.

As gold mining waned, timber dominated Nelligen's shipping. Its days as a port ended in the early 1950's.

What to do:

Stroll along the waterfront and imagine the activity with steamers arriving twice a week and horse and bullock teams conveying goods to and from Braidwood. The punt across the river opposite operated from 1875 until the bridge opened in 1964.The dead tree near the bridge is where bushrangers Thomas and John Clarke were supposedly chained while waiting to board ship for Sydney in 1869 to stand trial for murder.

Walk up historic Braidwood Street, past the surviving historic buildings and cenotaph to the former Catholic Church (1896).

Names associated with the Bay' sawmills include Francis Guy, Perry and Mitchell. Fishing and oyster farming also became significant industries. Shipping gradually favoured the Bay at Nelligen's expense.

Batemans Bay grew as a regional centre last century due to it being the closest seaside town to the growing national capital, Canberra. It became a popular holiday destination particularly for Canberra residents.

The demise of coastal shipping in the early 1950's and the soth coast's subsequent reliance on road transport meant the construction of Batemans Bay Bridge in 1956 provided a vital link to the south. The last sawmill at Batemans Bay closed in 2012 and the iron lifting span bridge was removed in 2021.

What to do:

Visit the Batemans Bay Heritage Museum for a fascinating look at life in and around Batemans Bay. Take a cruise up the Clyde River to Nelligen.

In the 1830's, settlers around the district would load and unload from ships anchored in Broulee Bay because a sandbar blocked the entrance to the Moruya River.

Broulee was surveyed and gazetted in 1837 and by mid-1841 a brisk sea trade had developed with Sydney. It was also a depot for Jervis Bay's whaling fleet. It had six buildings and the 46 residents were mostly convicts employed by the local landowner Captain William Oldrey. The port was also the centre for the court and police districts stretching from the Jervis Bay to Eden.

After a flood scoured out the bar at Moruya River in 1841, Moruya became the preferred port. The court and hotel were relocated to Moruya in the 1850's and Broulee was abandoned. Holidaymakers discovered Broulee in the 1920's

What to do:

Visit the memorial to the settlers and aborigines who rescued people from the wreck of the schooner Rover in 1841. It is in the park on thenorthern bank of Candlagan Creek . Walk around Broulee Island, a nature reserve since 1964, and see the site of the 1840-41 Erin-Go-Bragh Hotel and an interesting 1842 grave.

Attempts to make Tuross a recognised port were frustrated by its difficult entrance.

The Tuross peninsular (875 acres) was acquired by Patrick Mylott in 1870. He built Tuross House, overlooking Coila and Tuross Lakes. He farmed until 1883 when he moved to Sydney to ensure his young daughter Eva, born at Tuross, received appropriate training; she became an internationally acclaimed opera singer. A special plaque is in Eva Mylott Park in Jutland Ave.

Tuross Head was eventually developed as a tourist destination by landowner Hector McWilliam in the mid-1920s. He purchased the property from Mylott’s widow in 1925, subdivided it and advertised the lots for holiday houses. He established a nine-hole golf course and planted 200 Norfolk Island Pines around Tuross Head. These pines are McWilliam’s distinctive legacy. Several boat sheds with hire facilities were built to service the growing demand for fishing and boating.

What to do:

Enjoy the foreshore walk. and take in the view at One Tree Point Lookout. Visit the historic boatsheds.

The Bodalla Estate was established in 1860 by leading Sydney businessman Thomas Sutcliffe Mort (1816-1878) as his country estate. He had pioneered specialised wool auctions and pastoral finance, developed Mort’s Dock, and pioneered frozen meat export.

Mort was ‘the father of Australian dairying’. In 1864, he changed Australian cheese production from a cottage industry into a factory system where for the first time milk from different sources was manipulated to produce a uniform quality cheese to rival English imports.Bodalla was regarded as ‘one of the few showplaces of the industrial progress and enterprise of the Colony’. Ideas developed here were taken up by dairy farmers elsewhere. Bodalla’s ‘village’ was initially on the river flats but floods in the 1860s and 1870 prompted Mort to establish a new village on higher ground. The Bodalla Estate remained in the Mort family for over 100 years.

What to do:

Visit All Saints Anglican Church, a memorial to Thomas Mort and his first wife Theresa. Designed by Edmund Blacket. Built in two stages - the first completed 1883, the second 1902.

Other historical building to see include the Bodalla Arms Hotel (1910), bakery (by mid 1880s), Post Office (1899), and original school and residence (1878). The shingled Catholic Church (1886), was designed by John Horbury Hunt.

Visit Bodalla Dairy Shed to hear about Bodalla’s history and enjoy the delicious local dairy products made on site.

Sawmilling became the major industry; ships carried timber to Sydney from several sawmills until the mid-1950s. Shoaling within the inlet led to sawmills moving closer to the entrance. Narooma was gazetted in 1886.

Tourists were attracted to Narooma from its early days by the area’s beauty, ocean and inlet fishing, and oysters. From the 1920s, Narooma’s stylish guest houses attracted Sydney professionals and farmers and graziers from ‘out west’ and camping along the foreshore was popular from the 1920s.Tourism is now Narooma’s main industry.

Australia’s first commercial fish cannery was established in Narooma in 1937. Narooma is the closest port for Montague Island and its historic lightstation (1881)

What to do:

The original lens from Montague Lighthouse is on permanent display, along with related maritime artefacts at the Lighthouse Museum. Visit historic Montague Island Lightstation (1881) on Montague Island.

Stroll along the shore to Narooma’s Bar Rock Lookout, or head north across the bridge to Mill Bay Boardwalk. Interpretive signs include some of Narooma’s history. Walk or cycle to Dalmeny.

See the cluster of heritage-listed boathouses on Forsters Bay, the largest group of boatsheds on the south coast . Cruise in Wagonga Princess and hear about life on the river. Watch a movie at the School of Arts Hall (1926, now the Kinema), one of the longest-running movie theatres in NSW.

The gold rush at Mogo began with the discovery of gold at Cabbage Tree Creek in 1857. Two hundred diggers appeared almost overnight and the township quickly became a reality. According to some reports, there were over 10,000 people in the area.

Although fossicking continued in the Mogo gold fields, the gold rush was over, giving way to timber harvesting in the 1880s after Lynch’s mill was set up there. The steady growth in population led to the building in1866 of a church, shops, a post office and in 1869 a school of arts and government school opened. By 1910 there were two general stores, one hotel, a butcher and a draper.

However, the boom faded and the village became a sleepy backwater to drive through, until rediscovered and transformed into a quant tourist village in the late 1980s with period buildings used as cafes and boutique gift shops selling arts and crafts. The Original Gold Rush Colony opened in 1991 was a popular 1850s replica theme park of the bygone days of old Mogo Town. Sadly it was destroyed in the bushfires in 2020 and is permanently closed, however the village continues to thrive as a popular shopping destination.

What to do:

Spend time browsing the eclectic range of shops and smapling local produce from the cafes. T

ake a short drive east out to the Mogo Wildlife Park, or north to the Eurobodalla Regional Botanic Garden.

Moruya granite was used in the pylons for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. From 1925 to 1932, Dorman, Long and Company employed over 250 stonemasons from 13 different countries to supply, cut and dress granite slabs for the pylons. A flood in 1840 scoured the sandbar and opened up the Moruya River to shipping. The government then abandoned Broulee in favour of Moruya, gazetted as a village in 1851.

The first wharves were near the entrance. The river's deep channels changed frequently and vessels often grounded so a pilot was stationed at Moruya South Head from 1860.Moruya was an important port for the Araluen goldfields and for the district's producers. Moruya also developed into an important regional and administrative centre.

What to do:

Visit Moruya Museum in Emmott House and see the State Heritage listed Abernethy and Co stonemason's lathe. Follow the https://www.mdhs.org.au/pdfs/Moruya_Town_Walk.pdf to discover Moruya's delightful historic buildings.

Drive to Moruya Heads (Toragy Point). The Pilot Station (1861-1953), now private residence, is nearby.

Walk the stunning Bingi Dreaming Track from Congo to Coila Lake. The track links camp and ceremonial sites, water and food sources.

Goldmining contributed to the district’s prosperity but only on a modest scale. At its peak 1902-1904, 300 people lived on the mountain. The two villages of Tilba Tilba and Central Tilba relied more on dairying.

The ABC Co-operative in Central Tilba was the first cheese co-operative in NSW (1891); the village developed to mainly service farmers delivering milk to the factory. The district once led NSW in forage conservation and was known as ‘the land of silos’. Central Tilba was listed as a National Trust village in the mid 1970s.

Gulaga and Mumbulla Mountain (further south) were handed back to traditional owners in 2006.

What to do:

Walk along Central Tilba’s Bate Street to the ABC Cheese Factory. Interpretative signs are on some buildings.

Drive to the picturesque Tilba Cemetery on the coast. Walk up Gulaga from the historic La Galette Creperie (formerly Pam’s Store) in Tilba Tilba (1879/1880). It’s a 14km 4 hour return walk; an interpretative sign at the saddle explains Gulaga’s significance to Yuin people and some goldmining history.