Bodalla

Postcode: 2545

Bodalla is a small town on the Princes Highway near Narooma on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia in Eurobodalla Shire which is connected by road to Moruya, Narooma and Potato Point.

The name is Aboriginal and several meanings have been put forward, including "Boat Alley", "tossing a child up in the arms", "haven for boats" and "several waters".

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort purchased the Bodalla Estate in 1860. Since 1856, Mort had been acquiring land in the Moruya district; he eventually owned 38,000 acres (150 km²) in the district, a very substantial holding in that fertile area. Mort’s vision for Bodalla was as a country estate to retire on and to demonstrate model land utilisation and rural settlement. Mort wished to have a tenanted dairy estate run as an integrated whole. Mort replaced the beef cattle that had been farmed there and carried out extensive improvements including clearing land, draining river swamps, erecting fences, laying out farms, sowing imported grasses, and providing milking sheds, cheese and butter-making equipment. Butter and cheese were produced for the Sydney market. By the 1870s, the tenants were disgruntled sharefarmers and the estate was in Mort’s control again run as three farms with hired labour. After Mort’s death in 1878, and in 1887 his trustees set up the Bodalla Company to put the main asset of the estate on a business footing.

The Bodalla Cheese factory closed down in 1987. At the time the Bodalla Co-operative ceased operation, the thirteen farms supplying Bodalla transferred their supply to the company at Bega. Bodalla Cheese is now a brand associated with Fonterra Brands (Australia) Pty Ltd., formerly Bonland Dairies. Fonterra is a New Zealand owned dairy company.

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