New Year's Eve at "Riverbend"

Happy New Year to you all! (well, to the ONE person reading this blog ☺ )

Last chance!

31 Sproxton Lane, Nelligen, $750,000

"Last vacant block in Sproxton Lane. Moor your boat out the front and build your dream home. WON’T LAST!! Exceptional opportunity to own deep-water front on the banks of the beautiful Clyde River.

The land is situated in a rural setting but close to the historical town of Nelligen and only a few minutes drive from Batemans Bay CBD and beaches on the coast. ENQUIRIES: DAVID 02 4478 1105"

So runs the advertisement by the local real estate agent. $750,000 is a lot of money for a piece of dirt just 19 metres wide and 85 metres long. 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' because you'll never be far away from them. ☺

If it sells, we can expect another six months of building noise. We will be somewhat insulated from it down here at the end of the lane, but spare a thought for the new owners of # 33 who've just spent close to a million dollars for a bit of peace and quiet!

Nelligen gets seal of approval

Nelligen has a new, high profile resident - complete with flippers, fur and fangs.

An Australian fur seal bull took up residence at the Thule Road boat ramp in Nelligen about three weeks ago, and has made himself at home ever since.

Nelligen residents say the seal spends plenty of time in the water, but the boat ramp is his favourite patch of land.

“I don’t know how he got here, he must be lost,” a nearby resident said.

“He must be getting a feed in the river.”

The resident said that boat owners had tried to retrieve their vessel via the ramp recently but had been unable to do so because the seal didn’t feel like moving.

“He just comes out of the water, has a scratch and a yawn, lies there and goes to sleep,” he said.

“When people get near him, he just opens one eye, then closes it.”

The resident said that someone had tried to feed the seal sardines on Monday.

“It was no good; he didn’t take it,” he said.

Nelligen Café proprietor Rick Patman said it was thought the seal followed the cruise boat Merinda up from Batemans Bay.

“My daughter has named him Luka,” he said. “He’s a very good fisherman - he’s cleaned out our fish stocks.”

Nelligen oyster farmer Rick Christensen has reported seeing a smaller seal near the oyster leases near Nelligen.

National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger Libby Shields said that the two seals were unlikely to be related in any way.

“They are fairly solitary animals,” she said.

Ms Shields said that seal numbers were on the increase and this would explain the bull’s appearance.

“They are popping up all over the place,” she said.

By law, people are required to stay at least 40 metres from a seal.

“We realise this is difficult in such a place but they can get aggressive, so we would advise people for their own safety not to get close to him, try to feed him or let their dogs get close to him,” she said.

She said that the NPWS would not relocate the seal or take any other measures.

“He looks fine so we won’t intervene.”

Why not on the Clyde ?

Today's news is good news:


*Water hoon has jet ski impounded*

Police have impounded a jet ski for the first time in Victoria.

Police say a man was racing the watercraft eight times over the speed limit on the Yarra River in Melbourne this afternoon.

Water Police gave chase to St Kilda and arrested the 20-year-old man.

He is expected to be charged with a number of offences including the dangerous operation of a vessel.

ABC News

Don't leave Nelligen without it!

The question on everyone's lips, stylishly posed on a self-adhesive bumper sticker, is now available at Rick's Café for $3.50.

What's for sale, the handrail or the house?

Click on image for close-up
A bit in-your-face, this marketing campaign, don't you think?



P.S.

I've since heard that it is the house that's for sale, at $1,990,000 -- and that includes the handrail! However, with such humble pricetag there was no money left over for a professionally painted FOR SALE sign. [Here] it is and [here] and [here] and also [here]!

Mind you, two blocks farther down at the peaceful end of the lane you can buy [Riverbend] for just $10,000 more. For that you get 17 times more land area and 17 times more waterfront, and a stately home which gracefully wears the patina of a bygone age. It exudes character while at the same time keeping all sorts of characters away because the nearest neighbours are SEVERAL HUNDRED metres distant, not watching from behind the fence!

Nelligen. Who knows where the name came from?

Nobody seems to know, not even my wife who usually knows everything! ☺

As Stuart Magee explains in his beautiful little volume of local history, The Rivers and the Sea, "the need for the place arose in the 1850s when Braidwood and its satellites such as Majors Creek, Araluen and Mongarlowe were up to their ears in the explosion of people and commerce surrounding the discovery of gold.

The movement of goods, people and information between Braidwood and Sydney was chancy and oh so slow. Depending on the weather, bullock trains might take three weeks or three months. Horse-drawn carriage or dray was usually quicker but limited in capacity and expensive. Down the mountain lay the very navigable Clyde and thence a 24-hour run by steamship to Sydney. There was, as I understand the historian Reynolds, some competition between Currowan and Nelligen as to which would receive Braidwood's blessing, and Nelligen won out.

So, in the 1850s, the town was laid out and the road from Braidwood was opened. And a tough road it was too. There is a number of old photos showing the grim results of teams of horses and bullocks going over the side of the Clyde Mountain road.

Nelligen boomed! Over the next 20 years there arose four pubs, two stores, a blacksmith, a bakery, a police station, a court-house, schools, churches and a post office, Above all was the terminal building of the Illawarra Steam Navigation Company. If today you were to set up your picnic in that nice little park between the general store and the wharf, you would be smack in the middle of the 126 x 45 feet ISNC's jetty and store (oh, very well then, 38 x 14 metres). Twice a week the steamers plied between Nelliugen and Sydney, stopping at the far less consequential village of Batemans Bay on the way. The size of some of the paddle-steamers, and later screw-steamers, is astonishing. The Kembla, a paddle-steamer in use on the Clyde from 1861, was 183 feet long. The S.S. Moruya was 150 feet and 530 tons. The S.S. Allowrie was 180 feet. It ran aground on a mudflat in the river on one occasion and had to await the high tide to float it off. The last steamer to call at the Port of Nelligen was in 1952 - 99 years after the first."

But the goldfields centering on Braidwood started to run down, then the timber industry went into decline, and, Stuart continues in his little book, "after such a pivotal role in the development of the southern parts of the state, Nelligen has been deserted even by the highway and left to fend for itself.

All up and down the coast the faces of small towns are being tarted up and titivated by tourist-boards and enthusiastic councils. But Nelligen remains untouched and unimpressed by such progress. Not even the modern marvels of reticulated water and sewerage have imposed themselves upon it.

If I lived there I would hope not to see it change. But you sense it may just be resting after its great exertions and sooner or later some bright spark will again see it as the right place to do heroic things." (reproduced with Stuart's permission)

There is so much more in this delightful book but I won't spoil your anticipation as I am sure your local Angus & Robertson has a copy of this enjoyable read!