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This extract is taken from Australia Visited and Revisited. A Narrative of Recent Travels and Old Experiences in Victoria and New South Wales, by Samuel Mossman and Thomas Bannister, Addey and Co., London, 1853.
pp. 278-279.
“This little seaport town [Wollongong] is sixty miles from Sydney, containing between 500 and 600 inhabitants, and upwards of a hundred well-built houses, several places of worship, and a few good inns. It is becoming a place of considerable commercial importance in the colony, from being the principal shipping-port for the produce of this fertile district, which commands a preference-price for its butter in the Sydney market. Although little more than an open road-stead naturally, the bay on which the town is situated has been rendered safe shelter for vessels, by cutting into the rock on the south side, and building a substantial stone pier; thereby forming a harbour and jetty, safe at all times for a steamer to come alongside. We were informed that this was amongst the last of the works constructed by the prisoners before the colony ceased to be a penal settlement; and Illawarra is well pleased at the completion of the work. An enlargement of the harbour, by the construction of an outer breakwater, has been spoken of; but the one they have will do very well for the present.
“We cannot say that the immediate neighbourhood of Wollongong presents any picturesque scenery equal to the other parts of Illawarra; its characteristic is richness of soil. The well-fed appearance of the cattle met with in a short ramble round the neighbourhood, is proof also of the nutritious qualities of the pasture, to which they evidently have unstinted access. The well-kept fences in every direction within the environs of the town, the value set upon the land, and the care bestowed upon its cultivation and pasture, all evince the prosperity of the settlers. And we cannot take our leave of this beautiful little district and its hospitable inhabitants, without noticing a feature in their manners which no one can fail to observe in riding through it. There appears to exist amongst them a more kindly, friendly feeling than you commonly meet with in other parts of the colony; and the stranger who has travelled far and wide in the land, like ourselves, is agreeably surprised at the good-humoured ‘Good day !’ with which he is accosted in his wandering through the fertile, beautiful, and romantic district of Illawarra.
“in the afternoon we embarked on board the William IV. steamboat for Sydney, where we did not arrive, in consequence of the slowness of the boat, until the following morning, after encountering a most tempestuous night at sea, mingled with rain and thunder. Since then another vessel has been put into the trade possessing greater speed; and the passage to Wollongong is now accomplished in little more than one-half the time occupied by the old boat. As we entered Port Jackson heads in the gloom of the night, with the cliffs occasionally lit up by gleams of lightning, the scene was indescribably grand. And the lighthouse on the south head, shedding its revolving light on all around, looked like a giant watch-tower guarding the entrance to the portals of a mighty castle. From the tempestuous ocean we were soon safely within the placid waters of Sydney harbour, where the swell of the Pacific subsides into the ripple of a lake.”
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