This photo was captured at sunset overlooking Boonerah Point jetty and Lake Illawarra, Shellharbour NSW.
Boonerah Point jetty is one of my favorite local spots for sunset. It is the 4th longest jetty on the lake at 65 metres long and has a beautiful escarpment backdrop.
Boonerah is said to mean wind in the indigenous language, which makes sense as most places on the eastern and southern flanks of the lake are very windy as the wind blows down the escarpment and then across the lake uninterrupted by trees and vegetation. The Shellharbour area was called Yerrowah by the Dharawal People and Lake Illawarra was referred to as Jubbosay.
In 1770, Captain Cook (Lieutenant Cook) made reference to camp fires along the shore, just before dark in the Shellharbour area. This was most likely referring to Bass Point.
The first Europeans to officially step foot in the Illawarra were Bass and Flinders in 1796. However, they did note that there were some white people living among the Wodi Wodi tribe. They were most likely escaped prisoners from Sydney.
Like most of Illawarra, the Shellharbour region was logged for red cedar in around 1812. Much of the forest was stripped of its tallest trees very quickly and the lake itself was surrounded by these beautiful trees. Red cedar getters referred to Red Cedar as red gold. I often wonder how they were able to manually cut down these forest giants and, with no infrastructure and in thick vegetation, drag them to the beaches for shipping to Sydney.
In 1816, 22 free grants were issued to settlers. In 1851, a settler called D'arcy Wentwoth named his large property Peterborough, and the area took on that name until it was named Shellharbour in 1885. Shellharbour was named as such for very obvious reasons; the harbour and foreshore were covered in shells. The harbour was first built in the 1820s and was used to ship out red cedar. It was further developed in the 1860s.
In 1868, gold specks were discovered on Killalea beach by Edward Killalea and Thomas Reddall. They set up a successful gold panning operation over a 2-year period. Killalea was named after Edward Killalea and Reddall Pde, Lake Illawarra after Thomas Reddall.
Shellharbour today is one of the fastest growing/changing areas in the country with Shellharbour CBD, Shellcove, the Marina, Dunmore, Tulimbah and Calderwood expansions happening very quickly.
See more landscapes @ www.chilby.com.au
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