Thursday 24/11/2022 Pinnacles Loop Walking Track – Quoraburagun Pinnacles
Beowa National Park, NSW
Yuin Country
Participants: Stephen Davies (Photos, Report), Sue Davies
After another very comfortable night in our campervan at Pambula Beach Caravan Park, we headed off to explore the area to our south. After a short drive along the Princes Highway just past Pambula Lake we turned off onto Haycock Road into Beowa National Park. Beowa National Park has recently been renamed and the new name means Orca in the local Thaua language. Here we had eyed off some very short walks that would require a short drive between each.
Haycock Road – Quoraburagun Point – Quoraburagun Pinnacles – Pinnacles Beach
Max elevation: 43 m
Total climbing: 47 m
Total descent: -48 m
Average speed: 3.86 km/h
Total time: 00:33:10
Quoraburagun Pinnacles
A very short walk to brightly coloured, heavily eroded pinnacles of white sand overlain by red clay. There are several viewpoints for Quoraburagun Pinnacles and views over Pinnacles Beach. These pinnacles reminded me a little of the larger versions in Bryce Canyon in the USA that we had visited in 1989.
Haycock Road – Quondolo Point – Quondolo Beach
Max elevation: 37 m
Total climbing: 61 m
Total descent: -65 m
Average speed: 4.03 km/h
Total time: 00:33:19
Haycocks Beach, Quondolo Point and Quondolo Beach from Haycock Point
A beautiful sandy beach fringed by low green shrubbery. There are new sections of raised boardwalk and a newly formed staircase to take you down onto Quondolo Beach.
Information on NSW National Parks signage along the way
Critically Endangered Hooded Plovers
nest on the far south coast
This beach is home to a pair of endangered hooded plovers. Less than 50 of these birds remain in NSW. They need your help to survive. Please stay clear of the nesting areas by walking down by the water’s edge and watching for birds or eggs.
nest on the beach
Hooded plovers are small, timid shorebirds that nest between August and April. They make shallow nest scrapes in the sand just above the high tide mark and into the dunes.
Eggs and chicks are camouflaged to avoid predators. They are difficult to see and easily stepped on by beach goers and dogs. Nesting birds will leave their nests if you get too close. Unprotected eggs and chicks may be taken by predators such as ravens, get too hot or cold or chicks may even starve.
Severs Beach Track – Servers Beach – Pambula River
Max elevation: 11 m
Total climbing: 47 m
Total descent: -45 m
Average speed: 4.37 km/h
Total time: 00:30:40
Severs Beach on Pambula River
A quick walk down the bush track takes you to Servers Beach on the southern side of Pambula River. It was an opportunity to see the river mouth from a southern perspective and the bush-fringed northern foreshore of the river.
Barmouth Beach Track – Barmouth Beach – Haycock Point Walking Track – Ioala Point
Max elevation: 44 m
Total climbing: 164 m
Total descent: -162 m
Average speed: 3.76 km/h
Total time: 01:16:33
“Ioala” Beach near Ioala Point
The short walk down onto Barmouth Beach has you looking back towards the mouth of Pambula River and the village of Pambula Beach. Along the ends of the beach is a rich red-coloured rock platform with trees coming down to its landward edge.
Back up the staircase, we continued walking north towards Ioala Point along Haycock Point Walking Track. There is a sharp, steep descent followed by an ascent to get past a gully early on. After this, the track narrows and continues on towards Ioala Point.
At the unnamed “headland” halfway to Ioala Point, there is a small lookout that provides a great view of a rock arch on the rock platform directly below. From here, seaward there is a clear view of Ioala Point itself. Just to the west of Ioala Point, some maps show a trail leading down to a small beach below. Although on the ground there are only scant traces of this track we followed its supposed route, making a few parts up as best we could as we went, before reaching this tiny sandy beach with views over to Merimbula Beach and the hills beyond. Although the beach itself is sandy, today there were plenty of basement rocks in the water making it far from ideal to use as a swimming beach.
From here we made our way as best we could back to the track before returning whence we came and returning to Pambula Caravan Park for a relaxing afternoon.
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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