Mollymook

Postcode: 2539

Mollymook is located on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia and is part of the Milton - Ulladulla area, which is approximately 3 hours drive south of Sydney. It forms part of a seven kilometre stretch of unbroken urban development from the south of Ulladulla to Narrawallee inlet. Along the coast, geographically Mollymook consists of Mollymook beach, at the southern end of which is the Mollymook golf club and surf lifesaving club, through to Banister Head and then the southern section of Narrawallee beach. In peak holiday times South Mollymook beach, North Mollymook beach and Narrawallee are all patrolled by surf life savers.

There is little industry apart from accommodation and retail in Mollymook, but it is close to Ulladulla which houses a large commercial fishing fleet and supports a relatively larger population and economy. The name "Mollymook" is a corruption of mollymawk, the name given by sailors to small species of albatross.

For the 20,000 years prior to white settlement the coastal area was occupied, depending on what source you read, by the Dhurga, Walbanja and/or Wadandian Aborigines. Middens and caves used for shelter testify to their occupation of the land. When Captain Cook travelled up the coastline in 1770 he noted, at Bawley Point, south of Mollymook, people on the shore who 'appeared to be of a black or very dark colour'. On April 21 he sighted Pigeon House Mountain, to the west of the present settlement. He described it as 'a remarkable peaked hill, which resembled a square dove-house, with a dome at the top, and which for that reason I called the Pigeon House'. In 1827 Thomas Florance surveyed the coastline from Burrill to Narrawallee, naming much of what he saw. He anchored his boat, the Wasp , in what is now called Ulladulla Harbour and hence it became known, for a time, as Wasp Harbour.

The first land grant in the area was issued in 1827 to Reverend Thomas Kendall (1778-1832). He settled north of the present township of Milton, calling his property 'Kendall Dale'. There he ran cattle and felled timber utilising ticket-of-leave men for labour. Kendall travelled often from Ulladulla to Sydney but was drowned when his small boat, the Brisbane, was wrecked off Jervis Bay. His grandson, Henry Kendall, was born on the estate in 1839. Although he only lived there for five years the local people helped to launch his literary career when they instigated, by public subscription, the publishing of his first book, Poems and Songs , in 1862. He was to become one of Australia's most distinguished contemporary poets.

An area called 'The Settlement', upon the site of present-day Milton, was occupied by farmers. Creeks, rivers, gorges, mountains, lakes and swamps made access by land problematic so the settlers began to use the harbour, imaginatively known as 'The Boat Harbour', for the shipment of produce. There were no breakwaters nor any jetty, just a chain by which ships were secured.

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