Category: Kiama, Jamberoo, Gerringong LGA

From Bare Floors to Barely Affording. Why Getting Rich in 1870 Was Easier Than Buying a House Today”

In 1870, the Kiama Independent ran a piece titled How to Get Rich. The advice was breathtakingly simple:

Work hard. Spend less than you earn. Save a few hundred pounds. Buy a small farm on the edge of town. Build a modest house. Marry a prudent woman (the sexism was free). Live happily ever after.

And the best part? Don’t worry about furniture. As the newspaper sternly advised, “If the average colonist can have a carpet and fine furniture without taking another man’s money to pay for them, let him have them. But if he cannot afford it, bare floors will not hurt honest men’s feet.”

In other words: buy the farm first, worry about the carpet later.

And here’s the thing, it wasn’t a joke. Back then, this advice actually worked. You could slog for a few years and end up with a farm. Land ownership was within reach of an ordinary labourer.

Fast forward to 2025, and you’d be laughed out of the bank for suggesting such a thing. Today’s version of How to Get Rich might read something like this:

Work hard. Spend less than you earn (if that’s even possible). Save for a decade while rents chew through a third of your income. Watch house prices climb faster than your wages. Cry into your smashed avo (because it wasn’t the avocado that broke the bank). Apply for a mortgage that will consume 50% of your household income. Repeat until retirement.

Here are the hard numbers:

  • The house-price-to-income ratio in Australia now sits at about 8 times annual income (9.5 times if you’re in Sydney, 10-12 times if you live in Kiama). In 1870, it was closer to 1:1.

  • It takes the average household more than 10 years just to save a deposit—and that’s without the market leaping ahead while you save.

  • If you’re lucky enough to secure a mortgage, expect half your income to vanish into loan repayments. If you’re renting, a third of your income disappears into someone else’s mortgage.

In short: in 1879  “getting rich” meant a few years of thrift and sweat, and you could end up with your own patch of dirt. Today, thrift and sweat mostly buy you the right to complain about real estate agents and doom scroll Domain listings at midnight.

The truth is, our ancestors may have lived with bare floors, but at least they could afford the walls around them. Carpets were optional. Houses weren’t.

#HousingCrisis #CostOfLiving #KiamaHistory #ThenAndNow #BareFloors #HomeOwnership #AustralianDream #LocalHistory #RealEstateReality

From a Box of Hoses to One of the Best-Equipped Brigades in the State

This is a recreated image produced for this 85th anniversary blog. It is for illustrative purposes only and does not depict the actual vehicles, buildings, or equipment from the period.

Eighty five years ago, on Valentine’s Day 1940, a group of locals gathered in the Jamberoo Council Chambers, not for romance but to talk about fire. Austin Howle was elected captain, with M Boulton, A Pryor, and J Murphy as vice-captains. Each picked a team of five mates, and together they formed the very first Jamberoo Bush Fire Brigade.

The equipment was modest. It was a standpipe, a hose director, and a couple of lengths of canvas hose kept in a box at the Post Office. But it was ours, and it worked. Eventually, it was moved to the fence at the Council Chambers, which you might now know as the butcher’s shop.

Fast forward to 1958 and Kiama Council handed over our first station, an old Electricity Department building. The “tanker” at that time was a box trailer with a water tank and pump, towed by the captain’s Land Rover. Then came the brigade’s first real tanker in the early 1960s, an ex-army Ford Blitz that the members kitted out themselves.

From there, the fleet kept growing. A 1981 Toyota four-wheel drive, a 1957 Commer fire appliance rescued from Goulburn, and a Ford van turned into a forward control unit all joined the ranks. By the 1990s, we had replaced the lot with modern equipment, and the station grew too. Thanks to a lot of voluntary muscle power from brigade members who built, poured, painted, and laid bricks, we ended up with the four-bay station we know today.

We have had 14 captains over the years, from Austin Howle through to our current leader, Hannah McInerney. Along the way, many members have gone on to senior roles across the Kiama and Shellharbour fire service.

Today, Jamberoo is a village with fire-fighting equipment that consists of: Heavy tanker (Cat 1), Village protection unit (Cat 10), Striker unit (Cat 9) Personnel carrier (Cat 20)

The brigade 60  members, ready to tackle structural fires, bush and grass fires, motor vehicle accidents, rescues, searches, and even the occasional tree blocking the road. We also lend a hand across the Illawarra Zone and wider NSW  whenever needed.

From that humble box of hoses to one of the best-equipped brigades in New South Wales, Jamberoo RFS’s story is about dedication, community spirit, and a willingness to muck in and get the job done.

Here’s to the next 85 years, and maybe, just maybe, fewer 5am callouts.

#JamberooRFS #RuralFireService #FireBrigadeHistory #CommunityService #VolunteerFirefighters #HistoricFireTrucks #EmergencyServices #FirefightingHeritage #LocalHistory #NSWRFS

How a Highway Bypass and a Missing Railway Line Changed Jamberoo Forever

Did you know Allowrie St Jamberoo was once called George St  

Once upon a time, Jamberoo was the centre of the universe on the New South Wales South Coast. People will tell you it was the largest town between Sydney and Melbourne. Drays rattled through, pubs bustled, and blacksmiths hammered away, all thanks to the fact that Jamberoo sat squarely on the main inland route south. Travellers from Sydney would pass through Albion Park, swing into the Jamberoo Valley, then take on the steep haul up Saddleback Mountain before descending into Kiama.

It was not an easy journey, but it kept Jamberoo humming. The town was a natural stop for food, drink, repairs, and gossip. Things got even better in the late 1800s when the Pike’s Cutting was cut, giving a shorter, less back-breaking link to Kiama.

Looking west through Pike’s Cutting towards the Jamberoo Rd

The real change came earlier than many think. Before the first bridge at Minnamurra opened in 1870, the coastal route had a built-in obstacle — the punt across the river. Travellers would roll up, sometimes in carts piled high with produce, only to find a queue of buggies, wagons, and the occasional impatient rider, all waiting their turn.

The ferryman set the pace, and he was not in a hurry. A good crossing depended on the tide, the weather, and how chatty he felt. A stiff breeze might mean you waited longer. A juicy bit of local gossip could mean you waited longest of all. Farmers swapped news, children fished off the bank, and the odd traveller calculated just how much quicker it would have been to go through Jamberoo after all.

When the first Minnamurra River bridge opened in 1870, and later the second in 1890, the days of punt queues were numbered. More and more traffic flowed along the coast instead of inland through Jamberoo. What was later named the Princes Highway in 1920, rebranded to curry favour with the visiting royals. The prince in question, who later became Edward VIII, very nearly brought down the monarchy.

Of course, Jamberoo had faced other supposed threats before, like the Russians. In September 1860, The Kiama Examiner reported on fears that Russia might invade Kiama. Their verdict on Jamberoo’s fate was unforgettable:

“Jamberoo will, of course, escape, as it will be impossible for any army to come up here from the impassable state of the roads. In some future generation their fossil remains would be found imbedded in a strata of yellow clay, which would be all that would be left to tell the tale that a great and mighty army had once invaded our shores.”

In other words, Jamberoo’s best defence in 1860 was potholes and mud.

While the roads were shifting, so was the way people and goods moved between Kiama and Sydney. For decades, ships carried passengers, butter, and blue metal from Kiama Harbour to the city. The arrival of the railway in 1887 changed everything. Fresh produce could reach Sydney markets the same day, and passengers could travel in comfort without braving the sea.

The first government proposal for the rail route actually had it running through Jamberoo rather than Shellharbour. Imagine if that plan had been adopted. Jamberoo would have been on the direct Sydney to Melbourne main line. Butter factories could have sent goods by train instead of cart, pubs would have bustled with passengers stepping off the platform, and the valley would have been plugged directly into the country’s busiest rail corridor.

In the early 20th century, there was even talk of a branch line to Jamberoo when it was thought coal might be found in the valley. Nothing came of it, and the railway stuck to the coast. Jamberoo remained an inland service town, its fortunes tied to dairy farming rather than the booming railway economy.

W.A. Bayley, writing in the 1960s and 70s, told this story with the precise detail of his era, recording dates, council minutes, and route maps in the serious style of mid-20th century history writing. Dr Tony Gilmour’s Rascals and Respectables covers the same territory but with more sparkle. In Gilmour’s version, the stubborn characters, bruised egos, and colourful asides make you wish you could eavesdrop in Jamberoo’s pubs the day the first bridge at Minnamurra opened, or the moment they learned the railway would not be coming through the valley.

Dr Tony Gilmour’s Rascals and Respectables does not just tell you the history of our local pubs, it pours you a pint of it, froth and all. From the days when Jamberoo ruled the coast to the high-stakes drama of the railway line that never came, Gilmour weaves the rise and fall of our watering holes into a tapestry of hysterical anecdotes, petty rivalries, and larger-than-life publicans who could pour a beer with one hand and stir up scandal with the other. It is history with a wink, where every closing time comes with a punchline. You can buy it here: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1348394

Much gratitude to Dr Tony Gilmour and Sue Eggins from Kiama District Historical Society for their anecdotes and fact checking

#JamberooHistory #CentreOfTheUniverse #HighwayBypass #MinnamurraPunt #PrincesHighway #RailwayThatNeverCame #IllawarraHistory #SouthCoastNSW #LocalLegends #ButterAndBasalt #rascalsrespectables #TonyGimour

Leapfrogs, Lawbreakers, and the Birth of Surf Culture in Kiama

Long before the zinc cream and beach umbrellas, before lifeguard towers and bikini bans (or, more accurately, bikini approvals), Kiama’s surf and swim culture was something else entirely.

It was… illegal.

Yes, in the 1890s, going for a dip in the ocean in Kiama was a rebellious act, especially if you did it within view of a public street. In 1895, a fellow named John Holbrook dared to take a surf bath near Manning and Barney Streets at 7am. He was promptly hauled into court and fined 10 shillings under the Towns Police Act, which apparently took a dim view of early-morning enthusiasm and exposed ankles. That bold splash effectively sank surf bathing in Kiama for more than a decade.

But let’s backstroke to the beginning.

In the late 1800s, swimming wasn’t taught in schools, and most people bathed in the sea fully nude, preferably very early or very late, and never when the ladies were about. In 1891, some order was attempted: men were directed to bathe before 10am or after 5pm, while women had access to the baths in the middle of the day. Also, brace yourself, men were asked to wear trunks. A shocking concept for some.

Kiama’s Blowhole Point Baths, initially privately built, were handed over to Council and officially opened on New Year’s Day 1894 by G.W. Fuller, MLA, with 400 onlookers.  W. Kelly, organiser and swim evangelist, went on to form the Kiama Swimming Club that same year. A.E. Fulton and S.S. Wells were club secretary and president, respectable positions in a sport that was only just becoming respectable.

Around the same time, a zigzag track down the cliffs to Kendall’s Beach was carved out by locals under the leadership of P. Proud. Initially called Jacob’s Ladder, it later became known as the Golden Stairs, possibly because anyone climbing back up needed the strength of a god and the patience of a monk.

By 1905, the tides were finally turning. Council rescinded the old anti-bathing laws. And in 1908, despite Alderman Hyde Marsh’s solemn warning that “surf bathing is only a craze,” Kiama gave it the green light. That same year, the Kiama Surf Bathers Club was born. Costumes were neck-to-knee, compulsory for anyone over eight. Nude swimming? Still a thing, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, because by 1909 complaints were rolling in about young men skinny-dipping at North Kiama Beach.

And what really pushed things over the edge? Leapfrog.

In 1910, a stern council motion condemned surf bathing after complaints that men in bathing suits were “playing leapfrog” on the beach. But like any movement with good sand and better timing, surfing couldn’t be stopped.

By 1911, Surf Beach at Storm Bay was selected as the official town surf beach, two dressing sheds were built, and by 1912 the surf club boasted 45 men and 11 women. In 1913, the first major surf rescue took place. Tragically, Mr. Pollock drowned while his wife was saved and successfully resuscitated, marking the beginning of Kiama’s legacy in ocean safety and surf awareness.

By 1915, it was clear, “The baths and the surf are the greatest pleasures of a holiday in Kiama.” And while there were still complaints about the wrong people wandering into the wrong baths, and suggestions for continental bathing facilities, scandalous, the waves had won.

What began as a sneaky morning splash, a zigzag path, and a few brave souls defying the dress code became something bigger, a culture.

So next time you’re at Surf Beach, spare a thought for John Holbrook, fined for his 7am dip. He didn’t just take a swim,

He took the plunge, for all of us.

Much of this delightful detour through Kiama’s past has been made possible thanks to W.A. Bayley, whose 1959 book Blue Haven: History of Kiama Municipality remains a treasure trove of stories, facts, and fabulous detail. It’s not just a source, it’s a time capsule, capturing both the spirit of the district and the language of its era.

#KiamaHistory #SurfCulture #VintageSwimwear #KiamaBeachDays #SurfBathing #EarlySurfing #LeapfroggingLarrikins #KiamaStories #AussieHistory #RetroBeachVibes #LawbreakersAndLifesavers #BathingSuitHistory #KiamaHeritage #JamberooHistory #LocalLegends #HistoricalResearch #KiamaDistrict #AustralianHistory #DairyHeritage #ButterAndBasalt #IllawarraRailway #HistoryNerd #SmallTownStories #FamilyHistory #HeritageHunt #HistoricalHumour #LocalGovernmentDrama

Always Broke, Forever Hopeful, A Brief (and Broke) History of Kiama Council

When ratepayers gave the mayor boxing gloves in 1890, they weren’t kidding. 140 years later, council’s still trying to stop the money leaking out, one glove at a time. 

If you’ve heard whispers that Kiama Council is in financial strife and thought, “Surely this is new?” — allow me to introduce you to the long and time-honoured tradition of municipal money woes. Because, dear reader, we’ve been broke since before board shorts, streetlights, or even bridges were cool.

In 1882, Kiama Council approached Parliament to borrow money for, you guessed it, a tramway. At the time, it was seen as a visionary move. The blue metal trade was booming, basalt was being hauled from the hills to the harbour by horse and dray, and the dust and mud on Kiama’s streets were choking businesses and water tanks. A tramline was proposed to streamline transport from the quarries to the port and keep Kiama competitive in the shipping trade. It might have been brilliant, had it worked.

Instead, it went over budget, underused, and over the edge of financial logic. By 1890, the council was broke. Properly broke. Ratepayers were so fed up they literally handed the mayor a pair of boxing gloves at a council meeting. (Fact, not metaphor.)

By 1894, Kiama Council was saddled with a £4,000 debt to the bank, couldn’t afford basic street repairs, and had to sweep Terralong Street with brooms while dust blew into shops and ruined water tanks. The situation was so dire that they considered lighting the streets with acetylene gas instead of paying their overdue bill to the gas company.

Electricity? That was another slow burn. While towns up and down the coast were already flicking switches, Kiama was still dithering over tenders, tariffs, and the staggering cost of poles and wires. The council’s reluctance to commit funding meant Kiama lagged behind in the electrification stakes, and when lighting finally arrived, it lit up more resentment than roadways.

Water supply? That, too, was a long and thirsty road. For decades, residents relied on rooftop tanks, wells, and carted water. By the late 1800s, a proper water scheme was desperately needed. Eventually, the solution came in the form of Fountaindale Dam,

 located at the confluence of Tangalla Gully and Fountaindale Creek, approximately 10 km west of Kiama. A concrete wall was built to hold back the water, and in 1909 the dam was completed as an on-stream storage facility. It officially became part of Kiama’s water supply system in 1909 at a cost of £7,073 (roughly $1.1 million today). Pipes were laid, tanks were constructed, and water finally flowed. It was a triumph, briefly.

Fast forward to today and the irony is hard to miss. Fountaindale Dam still sits there, perched on what is now my family’s farm. It no longer supplies water to Kiama, having been decommissioned in 1977, yet the dam’s massive wall remains council’s responsibility, a costly, aging relic of early infrastructure dreams that now brings nothing but maintenance bills and engineering headaches. It is not accessible to the public.

Public buildings? Repeatedly proposed, repeatedly defeated, sometimes by referenda with fewer than 20 votes. A grand new civic hall was once declared too ambitious. Central Park was dismissed as a “disgrace to the title,” filled with weeds, quarry rubble, and good intentions.

And the consequences of all this financial floundering?
They were significant.

In 1890, after years of frustration, Gerringong and Jamberoo both seceded, forming their own municipalities and taking with them not only their rates but also a good chunk of local identity and political momentum. The split was celebrated with banquets, and the division remained in place until the mid-1950s.

Even surf culture faced municipal delay. When locals pushed for public bathing and beach access, council’s response was to fine the first man caught swimming in view of the street. It took years, and another round of public outcry, before bathing laws were finally revised and surf clubs allowed to form.

So if you’re feeling nostalgic about balanced budgets and visionary spending, maybe don’t. The truth is, we’ve always operated somewhere between ambition and overdraft.

The real question isn’t, “How did we get into debt?”
It’s more like, “Do we ever learn?”

#KiamaHistory #CouncilChaos #LocalGovernmentWoes #AlwaysBroke #MunicipalMeltdown #FountaindaleDam #BoxingGlovesAndBudgets #KiamaCouncil #TramwayTroubles #BudgetBlunders #HistoricalIrony #BlueMetalAndRedInk

Jamberoo Time Travel (Minus the Jet Lag)

You could say Jamberoo is in my blood. My family has lived here for eight generations, and while others have documented its history in great detail, I’ve recently joined the fray for a very specific reason: a book I’ve been commissioned to write about a “scandal” that rocked the village in 1910. Let’s just say the past has been more gripping than I ever expected, and I am absolutely loving the research.

With help from local legends Dr. Tony Gilmour and Sue Eggins at the Kiama District Historical Society, I’ve been digging through dusty records, unexpected side stories, and the odd political stoush that feels… well, oddly familiar.

Some people take a gap year to find themselves in Europe. I took a few weeks and found a cast of clergy, schoolteachers, butter makers, ambitious aldermen, and a council so divided they once presented the mayor with a box of boxing gloves. Yes, literally. A political stunt so deliciously dramatic, you almost expect it to show up in a Netflix period drama. The gloves were delivered to the council chambers  in July 1890 at the height of the campaign to separate Kiama Town from the rural wards, and the Council’s shock was so great they attempted (and failed) to prosecute the glove sender. Some things, it seems, haven’t changed.

Turns out, council being broke isn’t exactly a modern innovation. Back in the 1880s, Kiama Council found itself mortgaged to the bank, struggling under the weight of a tramway project that was supposed to pay for itself, and spectacularly didn’t. By 1890, they were embroiled in financial drama, territorial separation movements, and public meetings where frustration boiled over into performance art (cue the boxing gloves). It’s oddly comforting to know that while the potholes and politics may change, the budget headaches remain a timeless local tradition.

Jamberoo itself, though, was already galloping along by the mid-1800s. By 1836 it boasted its own flour and timber mill (powered by waterwheel), a brewery growing its own hops, and blacksmiths pounding out the future. Church life was thriving, with four  churches  and a similar amount of schools at one point, and education became a passion project. By 1890 Jamberoo boasted a population of 2,235 people

Little slab schools popped up in barns, old inns, and weatherboard buildings, giving rise to figures like William Cullen, who started school at Jerrara and went on to become Chief Justice of New South Wales. He was so precociously brilliant that at just 12 years old, the school inspector recommended he be offered a job as a pupil teacher. It’s probably the only time in history a careers advisor looked at a Year  6 kid and said, “Right then, how about you teach the class?”

Then came the butter boom.

In 1884, the Pioneer Factory opened near Spring Creek—the first of its kind in Australia. Two more factories followed in Jamberoo alone, at Waughope and Woodstock. Suddenly, the quiet valley was home to piggeries, Danish separators, milk cans hand-fashioned by the local tinsmith, and grand dinners with turkeys, fowls and suckling pigs to honour the men who made it all happen. The whole region was churning with energy (and dairy), as farmers abandoned their home churns for cooperative factories and the promise of a better price.

But nothing upended daily life more than the Illawarra Railway. When it opened in 1887, quietly, under pouring rain, local papers nicknamed the new Kiama ( now Bombo) station “The Station at the Graveyard.” Still, the transformation was immediate. Milk, butter, and even newspapers began moving by train. Kiama’s coastal shipping trade faded, and the daily arrival of Sydney papers left the local press scrambling.

As I keep uncovering these stories, I’m struck by how little has really changed. People back then were organisers, agitators, dreamers, and doers. They planted trees before Arbor Day existed, debated public spending over tea meetings, and threw their hearts (and sometimes their gloves) into local politics.

So yes, I’ve lived in Jamberoo. But not just the one you drive through. I’ve walked her muddy streets in the 1850s, seen her butter factories boom in the 1880s, and shaken my head in fond disbelief at an 1890 council session where someone thought boxing gloves might get their point across.

And I am loving  every minute of it.

Much of this delightful detour through Jamberoo’s past has been made possible thanks to W.A. Bayley, whose 1959 book Blue Haven: History of Kiama Municipality remains a treasure trove of stories, facts, and fabulous detail. It’s not just a source, it’s a time capsule, capturing both the spirit of the district and the language of its era. Like many works of its time, it defaults to the male gender throughout,  with little thought for neutral language, but it still offers a vivid, passionate account of a community in motion.

#JamberooHistory #LocalLegends #HistoricalResearch #KiamaDistrict #AustralianHistory #DairyHeritage #ButterAndBasalt #IllawarraRailway #HistoryNerd #SmallTownStories #FamilyHistory #HeritageHunt #HistoricalHumour #LocalGovernmentDrama