Saturday 26/11/2022 Market Street – Merimbula Boardwalk and Walking Track – Boggy Creek – Merimbula Lake
Merimbula, NSW
Yuin Country
Participants: Stephen Davies (Photos, Report), Sue Davies
This is a scenic 5km return walk along Merimbula Boardwalk. It starts from a small carpark at the north-western corner of the Market Street Bridge which crosses Boggy Creek on the southern edge of Merimbula. The western end terminates at a small wharf that incorporates a cafe. Scattered along the boardwalk are interpretive signs outlining information about the local ecology, usage and history of the lake. It makes for a pleasant short stroll.
Max elevation: 5 m
Total climbing: 88 m
Total descent: -89 m
Average speed: 4.02 km/h
Total time: 01:36:53
I was more interested in the historical aspects of the lake than most people would be as my great-great grandfather and three subsequent generations.
View across oyster leases on Lake Merimbula
Information on Bega Valley Council signage along the way
Farming the Seas
Oysters require a good tidal flow of plankton-rich, clean seawater. These features occur in many estuaries in southern NSW and today, oyster farms are a familiar part of this coastal landscape.
Oyster shell middens indicate that Yuin Aboriginal people have been collecting oysters here for at least 10 000 years.
In the 1870s the first commercial oyster harvests were prized from rocks placed in river mouths.
Today they are grown on trays or sticks in leased areas of the waterways.
European settlers to Australia burnt oyster shells to make lime for mortar. So few oysters were left after years of collecting that the practice was banned and oyster farms were created.
Formation of the Lake
A changing vista
18 000 years ago the view from here was quite different. From this point, you would be on the floodplain of a small river. From the hill above, you would have peered down on the river. Its course was eastward to a distant and unseen coast.
7 000 years ago you would be wading in the froth of breaking surf. Today this portion of the valley is an estuary, calmed and separated from the open sea by a long sand barrier.
18 000 years ago – the peak of the last Ice Age
During this cold, dry era the sea level was as much as 120 m below what it is today and the coast was far to the east. The continental shelf was mostly exposed.
Rivers channelled their way across the wide coastal plain carrying their cargo of sediments to the coast.
7 000 years ago – a period called the Holocene
As the last great ice age came to an end, the sea level gradually rose to approximately today’s level.
The incoming sea slowly flooded valleys and washed sand back from the continental shelf to the changing coastline.
Present
Sand washed onto the shore by persistent wave action has formed a sand barrier, and enclosed a body of water, reducing the estuary mouth to a narrow channel.
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, including sherry, port and hermitage. 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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