Shoalhaven Heads is a small village, but it has a full range of facilities including accommodation in the many caravan parks and relocatable home parks plus home stays and homes to rent.

We have a great Bowling & Recreation Club, Golf Club and hotel and the local shops include two local stores, bakery, butchers, cafe and Chinese and wood-fired pizza restaurants.

Lovers of water sports have access to a safe, patrolled surf beach and also boat launching facilities on the Shoalhaven River. Fishing is very popular, both on the river and from the beach. Tall tales are frequently heard - and some can even be believed!

There is a council-run swimming pool close to the beach and Surf Life Saving Club. The pool is set in beautiful grounds. Picnic tables, sun shelters and a shady toddlers pool make this an ideal retreat from the beach to enjoy a refreshing swim.

There are many wineries within a short drive and the ‘Heads is also only 15 minutes from the famous town of Berry where there are a wealth of antique shops, specialty shops and historic buildings.

The flourishing regional town of Nowra is 20 minutes drive south and the popular tourist destination of Kiama is the same distance to the north.

Coolangatta is Shoalhaven’s first settlement and the impressive home and grounds of the region’s first white settler, Alexander Berry, has been restored and is now known as the Coolangatta Estate & Winery. Behind the settlement lies its namesake, the sentinel Coolangatta Mountain. Coolangatta is a Koori native name meaning splendid view.

From 1830, the area was known as Jerry Bailey, although the origin of the name is unknown. It may possibly be the name of a sailor who lost his life when his ship ran aground whilst navigating the shallow river mouth. Whatever the origin, the township’s name was changed in 1955 to Shoalhaven Heads, the original word ‘Shoals Haven’ having been given to the area by explorer George Bass in 1797.

Shoalhaven River, Coolangatta Mountain and Shoalhaven Heads

History of the area

Last modified on 2009-02-27 01:22:22 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

In 1797 the Shoalhaven area was crossed by the survivors of the wreck of the Sydney Cove and then by explorer George Bass who, investigating their reports, followed Seven Mile Beach, crossed the shoals at the entrance to the Shoalhaven River and noted the fertile river flats. He named the shallow mouth of the Crookhaven River (as it is now known) ‘Shoals Haven’.

In 1805 the coastline was mapped from the land by Lieutenant Kent and assistant surveyor-general James Meehan. They explored the area noting the dense rainforest and heavy timber in the area.Seven years later surveyor George William Evans journeyed from Jervis Bay to the Shoalhaven, which he crossed in a bark canoe, and climbed Cambewarra Mountain where he remarked upon the magnificent views. He descended to Broughton Creek and struck out to the coast before returning to Appin.

James Meehan returned in 1818 when he was sent with explorers Charles Throsby and Hamilton Hume by Governor Macquarie to seek a route from the southern tablelands to Jervis Bay. Meehan and Hume followed the Shoalhaven upriver while Throsby, with the help of Aboriginal guides, explored Kangaroo Valley down to the Shoalhaven then crossed it and journeyed on to Jervis Bay. The following year Meehan and Hume returned to the area.

From 1830 the current site of Shoalhaven Heads was known as ‘Jerry Bailey’ for reasons now lost. The name was changed in 1955.

There were nothing but primitive huts manned by fishermen for quite some time and no lasting settlement occurred until the 1930s.

Coolangatta was settled in 1822 by Alexander Berry and Edward Wollstonecraft. They obtained a grant of 10,000 acres and 100 convicts and built their settlement on the foothills of the mountain named ‘Coolangatta’, an Aboriginal word meaning view.

Shoalhaven tourism revenue up by $85m

Last modified on 2009-04-29 22:45:47 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Tourism revenue for the Shoalhaven region increased by $85 million in 2008 compared to the previous year, according to latest figures from the Shoalhaven Tourism Board.

The number of domestic overnight visitors increased by 16 per cent, while the number of international visitors to the region rose by 7 per cent.

The number of domestic day visitors dropped but the tourism sector in the Shoalhaven still generated more than $630 million last year.

The council’s tourism manager, Tom Phillips, says it appears people who were previously day visitors to the region are now choosing to stay overnight.

“They liked the area so the next time they’ve come down they’ve decided to book overnight accommodation and that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to get them to do,” he said.

Article source: ABC News

Brief history of this website

Last modified on 2008-02-07 01:14:01 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

As I near the end of this rewrite process I thought I’d jot down some of the history of this site (Shoalhaven Heads Community website).

In early 2005 I decided to register a domain name suitable for a local site for the ‘Heads. As ’shoalhavenheads plus .com.au (or any variant) wasn’t available to register as all geographical names had been reserved by some government body or other, I settled on ‘theheads.net.au’.

I used some ideas and pages that I had used to create a reasonably successful community site in Auckland, NZ, to start a site for us here. I managed to get some sponsors/advertisers to support the venture (basically, as now, to help pay for hosting costs) and got things underway.

As with most ventures, I ran out of enthusiasm a little when I found that editing/coding pages and articles etc was just becoming too onerous a task to undertake on a casual, part time basis. So, a year or so later I tried a rewrite using a CMS, or Content Management System. I chose Drupal as it was recommended as a good one to use and for a while all seemed fine. However, I soon ran into snags - my web hosting company didn’t help matters either - but in the end it was just too complex to manage and I found myself ‘Googling’ for answers all the time as the Drupal support community was (and still is apparently) pretty hopeless for a casual user. Geeks were catered for but not me!

So, late last year I discovered WordPress. I’m in love.

While not designed as a CMS, there is a thriving support network out there of people like myself who have also discovered how good it really is - stable, relatively easy to understand and there is also a gigantic amount of ‘plug-ins’ and ‘widgets’ and ‘themes’ to be able to use it effectively for a community site like this one.

I had also managed to grab shoalhavenheads.net.au as a much better domain name to use, hence the change of address. I’ll redirect the old site address to this one for a while until Google and all the other ‘bots’ have found us and people have changed their bookmarks and favourites!

This will probably be my last go at this idea (well, I’ve said THAT before) so I’m committed to making a good go at it. The features I’ve already put up are better than the previous site I feel and a lot easier for article contributors to use.

So, anyway, thanks again WordPress and here’s to us making it the best community website on the South Coast!
Cheers,
Andy