Our Week in Terrigal


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Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Terrigal
January 14th 2008
Saved: February 18th 2016
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Gorgeous But No Idea of the NameGorgeous But No Idea of the NameGorgeous But No Idea of the Name

6" plus in diameter and a waxy flower on a laurel type bush??????????
Apologies to those who spotted the deliberate mistake in the previous Blog. We all know the parrots were Crimson Rosellas not King Parrots, which are green and red!

Terrigal (including Wamberal, Forresters Beach and Wyrrabalong National Park) is an attractive holiday destination on the Central Coast Terrigal has an airy beauty and ritzy up-market feel. The pleasant ambience may have something to do with the stand of very well established Norfolk pines along The Esplanade, which lend character and beauty to the beachfront. A pathway beneath the trees leads alongside the beach and out to Broken Head where the most prominent natural feature of Terrigal, the oddly shaped headland known as 'The Skillion', stands. A favourite place for suicide jumps, even though $1 million was recently spent on a fence!

Terrigal is one of the most popular residential, holiday resort and retirement centres on the Central Coast. It is located 91 km north of Sydney via the Newcastle Freeway. Visitors flock here for fishing, swimming, surfing, boating, waterskiing and the natural scenery. Terrigal Beach marks the southern end of 4 km of unbroken beach, which extends northwards to Wamberal Point. Just behind the middle section is Terrigal Lagoon.

The first European settler was John Gray who arrived in 1826 and called his property Tarrygal, after the indigenous place name, signifying 'place of little birds'. There was a sawmill in the area established by Thomas Davis in the 1870s. It produced about 150 km of wood a week and employed 120 men (including 70 teamsters for carting the logs) and a tramway ran the timber to a jetty for shipment to Sydney. Dairying later became important to the local economy. Tourism really got under way at the end of the 19th century thanks to a new focus on health and leisure in the culture and the opening up of the area to the general public with the completion of the railway line from Sydney to Newcastle in 1889 and the development of the roads.

Janie and Rob have lovely home only metres from Terrigal Beach. On our first night we were treated to roast pork (Janie is a pretty good cook!), which we ate out on the decking.

On Thursday it was a drizzly day the girls went to see ‘Atonement’ at the movies in Erina and the boys played a round of golf at Terrigal Country Club. Friday was a lovely day so we went to Gosford and caught the double decker train to Borawra, so we could enjoy the lovely scenery as the train followed the coast around Brisbane Water and Broken Bay. We saw much more than had we gone by car on the highway.

We returned to Gosford and went to the Rugby Leagues Club for lunch. This is one of the bigger clubs and has 420 pokie machines and a Chinese restaurant and Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant. As well as this there is a food hall with Thai, bistro, pizza, BBQ and roast meals outlets. We ate Thai and had a great two-course meal for $9.50. Do we go and thank everyone playing the pokie machines for subsidising our meal???

Gosford (including Wyoming, Ourimbah, Brisbane Water National Park, Erina, Hotham, Matcham) Major commercial centre on the Central Coast surrounded by important and interesting attractions. Located at the northern end of Brisbane Water, 79 km north of Sydney via the Newcastle Freeway and Pacific Highway, the town of Gosford is the commercial and administrative and centre of the City of Gosford which covers 1029 sq km. The population is in excess of
Big Waves at TerrigalBig Waves at TerrigalBig Waves at Terrigal

Caused by a Tropical Low coming down from Queensland
100,000 and climbing as the city attracts retirees, commuters and young families drawn by the mild climate, the ocean beaches, the bushland and forests and the easy access to Sydney by means of the freeway and the electric train service. Gosford is characterised by steep hills and valleys with extensive state forests to the west and north-west and the Tuggerah Lakes to the north. Tourism, plus citrus orchards, pigs, chickens, prawning, fishing, oysters, vegetables, plant nurseries, forestry and a number of secondary industries are the basis of the city's economy.

Governor Phillip and a party of officers and seamen entered Broken Bay in a whaleboat in 1788, five weeks after establishing the settlement at Sydney Cove. They passed Lion Island at the mouth of Brisbane Water and sheltered from heavy rains behind the rocky headland of Green Point. Phillip observed 'the land is much higher than at Port Jackson, more rocky and equally covered with timber; large trees which grow on the summits of mountains'. Friendly relations with the indigenous inhabitants got under way with camp fires and sing-songs. Apparently they were impressed with the fact that Phillip had a missing front tooth, as it was an initiation rite amongst them to knock out the front tooth of young men.

Bass and Flinders visited Broken Bay in the 1790s and recruited Bungary from the indigenous population. Bungary accompanied them on a number of journeys, including the circumnavigation of Australia. The first land grant on the Central Coast was made to ex-marine of the First Fleet, William Nash, in 1811 but he did not settle there. The proximity of a penal colony at Newcastle discouraged settlement and the rugged terrain made the area a haven for smugglers, moonshiners, escapee convicts and ticket-of-leave men.

The first white settlers were drawn by the possibilities of exploiting the local supplies of cedar, forest oak, blue gum and other hardwoods. Boat building also began at this time and continued until World War I. Small settlers took up land on the ocean shores, growing small plots of maize, onions, potatoes and hay. Others began dairying or gathered cockle shells which were loaded on to ketches and sent off for lime-burning. The gentry purchased the timbered areas along Erina and Narara Creeks. A survey in 1829 listed about 100 persons (half of them convicts assisting the timbergetters) living along Brisbane Water, with 916 cattle, 7 horses and 205 acres under cultivation. A courthouse was built on the Gosford site as early as 1827. By 1833 there were 315 people.

A private township was established by Samuel Peek at what is now East Gosford in the 1830s but it was slow to develop. A government township was eventually surveyed and laid out in 1839 on and between Narara and Erina Creeks and an Anglican church erected between 1838 and 1843. It was called the Township at Point Frederick on the survey submission, in honour of Frederick Hely who had died in 1836, but Governor Gipps crossed this out and wrote in Gosford, in honour of Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford (1776-1849), who had served with Gipps as a commissioner in Canada from 1835 to 1837. There were 53 persons in the town by 1848 when a new courthouse was built. Christ Church was erected in 1857-58 and is extant. The first school wasn't started until 1865 as the population of Gosford was still only 193 in 1871. In the 1880s tourism got under way particularly with the completion of the Sydney to Newcastle railway in 1889 and a new focus on leisure and health in the culture.

The Central Coast quickly became a primary tourism destination of Sydneysiders, fishing being the main draw card, though sightseeing and hunting were also attractions. Holiday homes began to appear. The train line also facilitated the expansion of existing industries. Gosford was declared a municipality in 1886, incorporating the two towns. Since World War II it has virtually become a part of metropolitan Sydney with the construction of the freeway in the 1960s and the improvement of the rail service in the 1970s. Agriculture and horticulture have declined in importance as Gosford has developed as a commuter, holiday and retirement centre. It was proclaimed a city in 1980.

Friday evening Janie and rob took us to the Leaping Frog French restaurant in Wyong as a very belated wedding present! Wyong is the next town form Terrigal on the way to Newcastle. They know the owner/chef who has just opened this restaurant and we had a wonderful evening. Corkage was a bit steep at $5.00 per bottle for BYO. OK if it was a cork but our bottles were screw top!!!!! Do you still pay corkage if you take the top off before entering?

Saturday 29th December 2007

Today we drove to Woy Woy and on to Ettalong to catch the ferry to Palm Beach which was a lovely trip past Umina Beach and Lion island, Howard wanted to doa repeat of singing on the Mersey ferry but there were too many people and he couldn’t think of an appropriate song so took photos instead.

Woy Woy is a holiday and retirement centre 8 km south of Gosford and 85 km north of Sydney via the Newcastle Freeway. It is the largest of a number of settlements strung along the western foreshores of Brisbane Water, a shallow but very large inlet. At the western end of Broken Bay is the mouth of the Hawkesbury River and at its southern end the mouth of Pittwater. All four bodies of water are popular with holidaymakers due to their proximity to Sydney, the beautiful scenery, the warm summer weather and the opportunities they present for boating, swimming, fishing. Increasing numbers of people commute every day to Sydney along the freeway and via the electrified train line.

Brisbane Water Drive runs off the Pacific Highway at West Gosford down to Woy Woy. Driving south the road follows the beautiful shoreline of Brisbane Water. The drive reveals that the development is continuous, though it not so excessive as to destroy the considerable beauty of the area.

The words 'Woy Woy' is said to mean 'much water' or 'big lagoon' - an obvious reference to Brisbane Water.
As the land was cleared and settlement expanded into traditional Aboriginal lands, relationships with the local kooris, which had, till then, been amicable, began to sour. They were driven from the land. When they struck back against what they saw as theft, the whites settlers retaliated and, by the 1860s, there were virtually no Guringgai left in the area.

The first oyster lease was established around1884. However, it was the arrival of the railway in 1888 which really precipitated the development of the town. The Woy Woy Tunnel (1791 metres) was built for the occasion out of ten million bricks, shipped by Rock Davis of Blackwall to Brick Wharf, at the north-eastern tip of Woy Woy Peninsula. They were then transported along a rail line (now Brick Wharf Rd) to the construction camp. It is the longest railway tunnel in NSW.

With railway access Woy Woy became a fishing and tourist resort in the 1890s. Around this time the Central Coast became the primary tourism destination of Sydneysiders. Fishing was the main drawcard, although bathing and shooting were other attractions. Subdivision soon got under way. Resorts, holiday villages and boarding houses began to appear and a ferry service was introduced.

The population had increased to 660 by 1911. Webb's original Woy Woy estate was sold off at auction in 1912 and a permanent official post office opened the following year. The first road to the town was built in 1923 under an unemployment relief scheme. It was enlarged and made ready for road traffic in 1930.


Ettalong offers cheap holiday accommodation and boasts a huge resort style Working Men’s Club, which amazed us. We did not go in but saw it from the ferry. There were plenty of boats out on the water and the half-hour trip was a really nice experience.

Palm Beach on the other hand is a very upmarket suburb at the northern end of Sydney beaches. There is something totally delightful about Palm Beach. There it sits at the end of a peninsula with the quiet waters of Pittwater on one side and the almost orange sands of a long, clean beach with waves breaking in from the Tasman to its east. Located, as the road sign states "Sydney 40 Manly 30" it is both a daytripper destination and a retreat for people who are wealthy enough to enjoy the multimillion dollar houses on the headland or who are prepared to spend some time getting to work. The population is a mixture of artists and businesspeople. Both writer Bob Ellis and filmmaker David Elphick live here - one on the ocean beachfront, the other on the headland looking across to Barrenjoey. Equally there are lawyers, bankers and, most famously, James Packer, one of Australia's richest men, has a holiday home here. James Murdock and Sting were holidaying at Palm Beach when we were there but they did not see us nor we them!

The first European into the area was Governor Arthur Phillip who, on an early exploration of the coast north of Sydney Cove, sailed into Pittwater on 2 March 1788. He was looking for land suitable for food production. It is recorded that they made contact with the local Aborigines at the time
A Home on the HawkesburyA Home on the HawkesburyA Home on the Hawkesbury

Taken from the train window. These homes can only be accessed via the river
and the contact was friendly. In less than a decade the agricultural potential of the Hawkesbury River had been well established and boats sailed regularly from Sydney to the Hawkesbury carrying timber and grain. It was around that time that the district acquired its name as a result of the large numbers of cabbage tree palms which grew in the area.

By 1808 the first settlers had moved into the area and were growing vegetables for the Sydney market. In 1816 the original Palm Beach Estate - an area of 400 acres which stretched from Palm Beach down to Newport and included Whale Beach - had been granted to James Napper. By the 1830s fishermen were living along the coast, often in caves, and making a simple living from what they caught. A decade later the district had a reputation for smuggling. Cargoes arriving in Sydney but trying to avoid government scrutiny and taxes were landed on the Pittwater side of the headland. The situation got so bad that in 1843 the government established a customs office on Barrenjoey headland just below the present site of the lighthouse. It continued to operate until the 1870s. Around this time some Chinese moved into the area and established a fish-drying business near the present site of the Palm Beach jetty.
It was Governor Phillip who named Barrenjoey Head. It is believed that the Aboriginal word "barrenjoey" meant "a young kangaroo", hence "joey". The stretch of water was named Pittwater after William Pitt who was Prime Minister in England from 1783-1801.

We had lunch in Palm Beach and caught the ferry back to Ettalong, this time deviating past some lovely waterside homes across the Bay from Ettalong. What a lovely day! On the way home went on a side trip to Avoca Beach and Copacabana both of which were rather overcrowded with tourists but will be lovely when they go! This really is a pretty part of the east coast.

Sunday 30th December 2007

The four of us went to the Hunter Valley for a wine tasting trip. This is Australia’s oldest wine producing region Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Brokenback Range, the area now yields more than a hundred wineries and cellar doors. The Hunter Valley is known for its award winning wines, however the valley now supports a burgeoning olive industry with cold pressed olive oil and other olive products. There are also wood fired bread, delicious Hunter Cheeses, stone fruits, table grapes, honey, home made condiments and sauces, and even chocolate made with chilli.

It was not really until the 1960s that the wine industry of the Lower Hunter really began to boom due to the closure of local coal mining operations and the reorientation of Australian tastes with the influx of European immigrants after the Second World War. By the 1980s it had superseded mining as the centrepiece of the local economy.

There is only one small town in the area - Cessnock but it is not particularly interesting. Many early landholders in the Hunter Valley were of Scottish descent. Some were the younger sons of noble families who had come to take advantage of generous grants when the family estate was bestowed upon the eldest son. One such case was that of John Campbell who was granted 1560 acres in 1826 along Black Creek where the town is now situated. He named the property after Cessnock castle in Ayrshire, Scotland, which belonged to his baronial grandfather.


The first road to join Sydney with the Hunter Valley it was built by 3000 convicts between 1826 and 1834.

Our first stop was to McGuigan cellars where we noticed a great “Special” on several wines. On closer examination of one of the bottles Linda noticed the label said Imported by ? in California. This meant only one thing - a failed export order hence the $8 per bottle price. One of the people in the cellars confirmed this guess so we had a taste and bought several bottles. Next door was a cheese and olive tasting place so we tasted but didn’t buy as far too expensive at tourist prices.

Next stop was The Hunter Valley Gardens Village where there were several gourmet shops including a British Sweet Shop. Jane wanted Twiglets but at $3 for a tiny bag only bought three bags instead of the armful she really wanted! There was one shop that sold liqueurs, olive oil, vinegars etc in bulk. The idea was that you bought a fancy bottle from them and had it filled and returned again and again! There was also a chocolate/fudge shop where we had a couple of tastings. We bought some bread for our picnic lunch, which Rob had organised for us all.

Next stop was Audrey Wilkinson (a man!) Vineyard. We only went there for the views of the Brokenback Mountains, which were quite stunning. We did do wine tasting but it wasn’t too good. By this time we were all getting hungry so an inspired Linda asked if it would be OK for us to picnic under one of the trees on the lawn overlooking a lovely view. Never actually thought about asking to do this before but they told us lots of people do it and we were most welcome. Rob had done us proud with prawns and BBQ chicken and salad. We were very naughty and opened a bottle of wine that did not come from Audrey Wilkinson’s but was rather delicious and we hid it well!

Our last stop was a Robyn Drayton Wines. Her father developed the vineyard and sadly he and his wife were killed in a light plane crash en route to Norfolk Island. Robyn took over and the family has made a small museum dedicated to her parents with lots of family momentos and photographs, which was very interesting and worth the visit - unlike the wine!!!!!

These
A Small Runabout at Palm BeachA Small Runabout at Palm BeachA Small Runabout at Palm Beach

The boat is called "One Song". Perhaps the proceeds from a one hit wonder?
were Rob and Janes favourite wineries and by now we had had enough and were ready to head home, about a 2.5-hour drive. You really need several weekends away to do the Hunter Valley justice.

Monday 31st December

The boys played golf again in the morning whilst the girls went off for a spot of shopping and then coffee on the foreshore at Terrigal. This evening we had been invited to Lorraine and Warwick’s for dinner. Lorraine is an old friend of Jane’s and they both go off holidaying together - China this year. Another couple joined us and we had a lovely New Year’s Eve dinner and were home before midnight as none of us was too keen to stay up late. Howard, however, did the right thing and wore his kilt for Hogmanay.

It may not be widely known but Christmas was not celebrated as a festival and virtually banned in Scotland for around 400 years, from the end of the 17th century to the 1950s. The reason for this has its roots in the Protestant Reformation when the Kirk portrayed Christmas as a Popish or Catholic feast and therefore had to be banned. Many Scots had to work over Christmas and their winter solstice holiday was therefore at New Year when family and friends gathered for a party and exchange presents, especially for the children, which came to be called hogmanay.

There are traditions before midnight such as cleaning the house on 31st December (including taking out the ashes from the fire in the days when coal fires were common). There is also the superstition to clear all your debts before "the bells" at midnight.
Immediately after midnight it is traditional to sing Robert Burns’ “For Auld Lang Syne”. An integral part of the Hogmanay partying, which continues very much today, is to welcome friends and strangers, with warm hospitality and of course a kiss to wish everyone a Guid New Year. The underlying belief is to clear out the vestiges of the old year, have a clean break and welcome in a young, New Year on a happy note.

"First footing" (that is, the "first foot" in the house after midnight) is still common in Scotland and the north of England. To ensure good luck for the house, the first foot should be male, dark (believed to be a throwback to the Viking days when blond strangers arriving on your doorstep meant trouble) and should bring symbolic coal, shortbread, salt, black bun and whisky.

Tuesday 1st January

Today we went for a drive up to The Entrance, which derives its name from the narrow channel that divides the mainland and connects Tuggerah Lake to the ocean on the Central Coast of NSW. Tuggerah Lake is about 12 x 8 km in diameter and about 2 metres deep.
The Entrance is a popular holiday resort and retirement centre offering visitors surfing beaches, an enormous lake and a central area which has attractive foreshore parkland, a Boardwalk Park, and the development of a open-air mall called The Waterfront which is full of fountains, cafes and eateries.

Tourism got under way in the late 19th century with a new emphasis on health and leisure in the culture and the completion of the rail line from Sydney to Newcastle in 1889. Sydneysiders began to travel by launch from the train station at Wyong or from Sydney direct by seaboat, to fish, bath and walk in the area. A holiday camp was established at Toowoon Bay in the early 1890s and the first guesthouse in the area opened at North Entrance in 1895.

We were not very impressed with the wall to wall people and tightly packed caravan park. Most holiday makers seemed to be Asian and we were amazed to see afamily start up a BBQ under a Norfolk pine tree on the verge with parked cars on one side and another family on the other having a picnic near the footpath as crowds walked by.
We later called in at Wamberal at the far end of Terrigal Beach, here it was much less crowded and rather pleasant.

Wednesday 2nd January

We said our goodbyes and headed back to Young returning via a different route. This took us to Mangrove Mountain where there are many orchards and market gardens to Mangrove Creek then following the Hawkesbury River passing lots of holiday homes on the edge of Dharug National Park to Wisemans Ferry. Here there is a free ferry service, which runs 24/7 whenever anyone wants to cross the Hawkesbury River, there are no bridges because of the sheer cliffs on the northern side. 520 convicts were employed in 1829 to cut a road out of the solid bedrock after six months work.

This was no place for Lucille and even Geraldine found the going very tough on the zig zag steep climb up from the river! We headed on to Windsor, which can claim to be the third European settlement in Australia after Sydney Cove and Parramatta and is a pretty 19th century town and a major centre on the Hawkesbury River.

Next we came to Richmond, the town first settled by Europeans in 1794 and quickly became the granary for the colony. Five years later the area was providing Sydney with half its grain requirements. The problem was that the Hawkesbury River flooded regularly. Thus, when Macquarie established the five Macquarie towns in the Hawkesbury Valley - Windsor, Richmond, Castlereagh, Wilberforce and Pitt Town - in 1810, he specifically located the township on a ridge above the Hawkesbury River which, when it had flooded in 1809, had devastated the farms in the area. Macquarie then exhorted all the settlers in the area to 'move to these places of safety and security' and it was on this basis that the town of Richmond began to grow.

Throughout the nineteenth century the town grew because of the rich agricultural lands which surrounded it and because it was ideally located on the cattle routes from the west and the north. Today Richmond is a pleasant township on the outer edges of the Sydney sprawl. Certainly large numbers of people from the district are daily commuters to Sydney.

From here we started to climb up to Kurrajong Heights in the Blue Mountains National Park where there are wonderful views across the Sydney Basin to Sydney. This is an area like no other in the Blue Mountains. The land has been cleared leaving gently undulating foothills. The people who have moved into the area have grown European cold climate trees and bushes, and commercial fruit crops - apples, pears, peaches, apricots, nectarines, walnuts and cherries.

The road took us on to Lithgow and we had come full circle so retraced our steps back to Young where we made preparations for our trip to our next adventure in Echuca, Victoria……………………………………………………



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The Hawkesbury RiverThe Hawkesbury River
The Hawkesbury River

Taken from a lookout as we climbed up from Wisemans Ferry


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