Sunday 27/11/2022 Bullara Street – Merimbula Road – Panboola Waterbird Sanctuary – Yowaka Street
Pambula, NSW
Yuin Country
Participants: Stephen Davies (Photos), Sue Davies (Report)
Having enjoyed participating in a park run here on Saturday we returned today to have a look at the waterbird sanctuary. This would be best viewed at dusk or dawn but it was still pleasant to have a wander around this wetland conservation area. There are freshwater billabongs, salt marshes and mangroves and saline areas around the former racecourse and walking and cycling tracks.
Max elevation: 48 m
Total climbing: 47 m
Total descent: -50 m
Average speed: 3.37 km/h
Total time: 00:48:42
NSW National Parks signage along this track also states
Panboola .. a wetland that is not always wet
– Provides habit at for frogs, snails, birds and invertebrates
– Supports the food chain with nutrients, carbon and oxygen
– Acts as a filter for run-off water from Pambula to keep water clean for oysters, fish and us
– Controls floods by allowing excess water to spread and be absorbed
Panboola lies in the country of the Thaua people, and has contributed to their needs for at least 40,000 years.
– Birds and animals provide food
– Eel traps can be made from woven reeds
– Baskets are made from smooth strap shaped leaves of Lomandra.
– Phragmites (common reed is used for spears, cut into short pieces for necklaces or nose ornaments
– Water loving plants such as sedges, rushes and various tree species are used for food and medicine.
Some Far South Coast Koori names for plants and animals are
Black swan – Kole ye to
Kookaburra – Kookerbuer
Eaglehawk – Meerum
Black cocKatoo – Ner ral-
Possum – Koengerrer
Black Duck – Oomb bur er
Small Ant – Nab ber
Wattle tree – Mun dower ree
It is less than 200 years since 1835 when the first white settlers arrived.
From that time these fertile river flats have provided valuable farming land.
Chinese market gardeners grew vegetables for goldminers working in the Pambula Goldfields.
It was here the first township of Pambula was devastated by flood.
The straight roads within Panboola are remnants of the original settlement.
My family connection with the Pambula district
(based on historical records and notes my grandmother wrote in the 1980s)
My great great grandfather, Matthew Woollard, moved to Pambula from Garden Hill Cottage, Wollongong in 1867.
Envelopes Addressed to Matthew Woollard 1867 – 1868
Matthew purchased about 340 acres of land at Green Point on the southern shore of Lake Merimbula which, over time, he cleared for mixed farming. All types of horse-drawn and hand implements were used to aid in these labours to enable the family to be self-supporting. Connection to electric power did not occur until about the 1980s.
Merimbula Lake view from “Green Point” homestead
At its peak, the property included a five-acre orchard (apples, melons, etc.) and a five-acre vineyard. Elsewhere they also grew vegetables, corn and oats. Livestock included cattle and pigs. The local waterways provided oyster growing and fishing opportunities.
The farm had a fully equipped dairy which dictated each day’s work schedule, as other jobs needed to fit in around milking. Cream was sent to a local factory and calves and pigs were fed excess skimmed milk.
Green Point, Pambula
They slaughtered and butchered their own stock for meat and smoke-dried Taylor (fish) for home use.
Matthew had licenses to distil brandy from wine as early as 1869. His son Matthew was listed as a vigneron at Pambula in both the 1903 & 1905 Sand’s Country Directories. One large barn on the property included a wine press and twenty or more wine casks. Here they produced six different types of wine. On Sundays they had many visitors arrive to buy cases of wine for 2.00 pounds.
Their produce, including vegetables, fruit and fish, was sold locally in town on Fridays. On each Thursday, they endured a day of heavy and hard work in preparation.
On Merimbula Lake they had a small wharf and boat shed with a flat-bottomed boat for the shallow, muddy foreshore oyster work and a keel bottom boat for pleasure.
They had oyster leases on Pambula River where they kept another boat in a shed on the river bank. They also started two oyster leases on Merimbula Lake in 1887 below their Green Point property. After the oysters were bagged they were sent down to Melbourne where they earned about 4 pounds per bag. Any chipped or broken oysters were used at home, where they were eaten raw or cooked as soups, fried or incorporated into pancakes.
Matthew’s daughter Clara, my great-grandmother, was a teacher for many years at nearby Millingandi School before taking up the assistant teacher’s position at Pambula Public School in 1915. I still have in my possession the piano Clara bought in 1901 and I assume it played a key role in their evening entertainment.
My grandmother, Hilda, was born at Green Point in 1900 and lived her early years there. A letter her mother wrote after she was bitten by a snake in the orchid in 1906 makes very interesting reading.
Norman Smith at Green Point, 1930s?
The house, 1990’s version
Parts of this Green Point property were sold off over the years to pay taxes but the core remained with Matthew’s descendants (first his son Thomas Woollard, followed by granddaughter Ivy Smith and finally great grandson Norman Smith) until 2012, a span of four generations and 145 years!
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