Pacific Palms

Postcode: 2428

Pacific Palms is small coastal township in the Mid North Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, in Great Lakes Council. Including surrounding areas, it currently has a population of 3,252.

Pacific Palms' major industry is tourism, with the township attracting thousands of visitors every year. It is also the home to Booti Booti National Park, and some of NSW's premier surfing beaches (including Blueys and Boomerang).

Pacific Palms, 282 km north of Sydney via the Pacific Highway, is the general place name given to a strip of the mid-north coast from Tarbuck Bay in the south to Tiona Park in the north. It is also the name given to the central shopping area adjacent Boomerang Beach. The main access road which bisects the area is The Lakes Way which departs the Pacific Highway just north of Bulahdelah and runs east out to the coast following it north to rejoin the highway south of Forster. This is a holiday area of small settlements which are primarily designed for holiday makers and people who have chosen to retire in the area. Not surprisingly there is a feeling of relaxation and transience.

Fishing is obviously a popular pastime and beach anglers will usually be rewarded with tailor, bream, whiting and mulloway. The headlands and rocks are good for drummer, blackfish, bream and tailor, the lakes for bream, whiting and flathead and Charlotte Head is generally considered the best spot for land-based game anglers after tuna and kingfish.

Captain Cook and Matthew Flinders sailed by the area in 1770 and 1799 respectively. Two ships were wrecked off Cape Hawke in 1816, presumably intoducing the first white people to the area. The Captain of one of the ships, his wife, child and two crew reached Newcastle. The rest were presumed killed by the indigenous inhabitants of the area.

A developer named Degotardi did much to promote (and further subdivide) the area in the late 1950s and a local progress association came up with the name 'Pacific Palms' in 1959 with an eye to enhancing its appeal. Subdivision, homebuilding, sandmining and roadworks encouraged population growth in the 1960s and 1970s. All in all, the 'development' of the area has been extremely slow. Indicatively, the local school didn't receive electricity until 1967 and The Lakes Way remained unsealed until 1970. A market is held on the last Sunday of each month at the Community Centre in Pacific Palms, from 9.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.

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