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“KIAMA.
(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
“SEEING from time to time in the columns of your journal, sketches of various country towns, perhaps a short notice of Kiama and its surrounding neighbourhood may not prove unacceptable to your readers. Very little is known of the grandeur of the scenery, and, therefore, I will endeavour to give a short account of the district generally.
“Kiama is situated eighty miles south of Sydney, and contains about 1000 inhabitants. From the sea the town presents a grand picture, the houses appearing so prominent, and the ranges of hills and mountains behind forming a pleasing back-ground. On approaching the little bay or harbour, the observer is naturally struck with what at first appears to be a mass of ruin. This is the remnant of our breakwater - the works having remained idle for a considerable time, and every succeeding storm damges the work. The steamer at present is moored alongside a wharf about twenty foot square, and this serves all the purposes for which it is intended. We have regular trips of the I.S.N. Co.’s steamers from Sydney three times a week, and occasionally a sailing vessel drops in. The principal exports consist of farm and dairy produce, and I may say that the butter manufactured about Kiama can cope with any in the colony. The two principal streets in the town are Manning and Terralong streets. Kiama cannot boast of many first-class buildings, most of the houses being of weatherboards. The various churches are all built of stone, and likewise the court-house, and the English Scottish and Australian Chartered and the Commercial banks. The stores are well laid out and replete with the necessaries of life. We have only two public-houses, while we have four churches. In the district there are three divisions of the sons of temperance, the total number of members being about 150. A division of the daughters of temperance is about to be formed. It is quite an event to see a drunken man in the street - In Fact, I cannot remember when I witnessed such a sad spectacle. The police have very little to do in the way of keeping the peace.
“Our institutions, I am sorry to say, are not in a very flourishing state. The Kiama School of Arts was, but is not, and has now become a thing of the past. Various other societies have become defunct. It is a pity in so large a town that an institution so productive of good cannot be maintained. There is a ladies’ benevolent society, which has lent its aid to relieve the wants and ameliorate the condition of the suffering or indigent poor. I almost blush to record the fact that there is no public school in Kiama. For the past three years efforts have been made to erect a building, and I hope before long a structure will be built wherein the rising generation may obtain an education adapted to their several capacities. It is true we have a denominational school, and some minor ones; but none of them can compare with ‘Mr. Parkes’s noble scheme.’ We have a volunteer corps and a brass band, which considerably enlivens the town with its martial strains.
“The soil of the district, as a general rule, is fertile, and agricultural pursuits are followed by the majority of the farmers. All kinds of cereals flourish, and arrowroot, sugar-cane, and other tropical plants are cultivated in many places. The luxurious grasses on the hill sides and the valleys form food for the cattle, and butter and cheese is manufactured.
“The hills about the township are in most cases crowned with mansions, and this gives a very pleasing aspect to the scene. The scenery is sublime and grand. Were the poet here he would find sufficient food in nature to contemplate mountains hurled on mountains, in a perfect chaos of confusion. On the summit of the saddle-back range the view is very extensive. On the right nothing but the vast boundless ocean, while to the left are mountains towering to the clouds. these elevations are not barren, but in nearly every case are thickly timbered. trees of considerable girth are sometimes to be met with. The lofty cabbage palm raises its head above its brethren, as if to get a more extensive view of the scene around, and the stately fig, and the beautiful fern, all combine to render the scenery more romantic than real. Mr. Montgomery Martin describes this district in the following words : - ‘The charms peculiar to mountain scenery of the wildest and romantic order - and those also which characterize more particularly the shores of a mighty ocean - are each enhanced by the rich luxuriance of tropical vegetation; while birds of exquisite form and brilliant plumage take their flight through the clear exhilarating Australian air. The stately palms, the graceful tree, and the lofty cedars, entwined to their very summits by parasitical plants of various kinds, which, stretching from tree to tree form a sort of embowered roof, afford a perfect refuge from the sun’s too powerful rays, and overshadow a rich and various undergrowth of wild vine and matted creepers. No pestilential vapour - no deadly miasm, lies in wait to poison with insidious influence the unwary loiterer. In Eastern Africa (at Zanzibar), Madagascar, and Java, I have looked upon regions (in many respects resembling this) which seemed at first sight to realize the idea of Eden; but painful experience soon teaches a European that to him such fair scenes are fraught with disease and death; and the contemplation of them inspired me with much the same feeling with which a man would regard the mask whose painted beauty served as a temporary cover to loathsome deformity.’
“The sportsman would here find sufficient food for his gun. Every species of aquatic birds, such as goose, ducks, and swans, and cockatoos, turkeys, &c., derived from the ramble in the district known, I am confident gentlemen from the metropolis would gladly avail themselves of the good opportunity and take a ramble through the district.
“The mineral resources are fairly represented. Coal of a superior quality is to be obtained on the surface of the various mountains, and iron, slate, and freestone are abundant.
“In the literary world we have two newspapers, named respectively the Kiama Independent and the Kiama Pilot, the former the organ of the Martin-Parkes party, and the latter rather inclined to the Cowper and Robertson party. Both these journals are well printed (which cannot be said of some newspapers), and are circulated, I am given to understand, extensively throughout this and the adjoining districts.
“There are various curiosities about the district, which it would take too much time and space to enumerate. i will just mention the far-famed Blow-hole, which is worth visiting, especially in rough weather. The sea dashes through the subterraneous cavern, and striking the rocks below shoots up through the aperture, accompanied with a roar like thunder. The water sometimes ascends more than 150 feet in the air, and may be seen from any part of the town. There are various caves in the rocks along the coast, all of which are worth visiting. In rough weather the sea, striking the rugged cliffs along our coast, rebounds upwards to an extraordinary height, and viewing the scene as I do through my window, imparts a feeling of awe within one’s breast.
“I am afraid your readers will be tired with this dull sketch, so I will conclude, and as I purpose taking a ramble down to Shoalhaven shortly, perhaps I will again take up my pen, and give you an account of that locality.” (The Australian Town and Country Journal, 23rd April 1870, p. 10)
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