Coledale
Coastal suburb with balance of facilities and peacefulness
About 4 km north of Thirroul along Lawrence Hargrave Drive, is Coledale, a very attractive, semi-suburban, coastal locale of about 900 people with a small and unobtrusive shopping strip, consisting of a good bottle shop (plenty of good quality wines), a cafe-restaurant serving gourmet dinners, a general store cum cafe/diner, a video shop and a fast food outlet. There is also a good-sized cricket oval and a very pleasant primary school directly overlooking the beach where local markets are held on the fourth Sunday of each month.

The main drawcard of the area, however, is the beach, located on the northern side of the shops, with extensive parking, camping possibilities, an amenities block and a surf lifesaving club. On the southern side of the shops is another good beach named Sharky's, with plentiful parking, although it is not patrolled. Both beaches are fringed by excellent rock platforms covered with small rock pools. Just north of Sharkyıs, back toward the main beach, is a small pool filled with ocean water. 800 metres beyond Sharky's, along the main road, are tennis courts and a service station adjacent another small beach with boat-launching ramp.

Much of Coledale is situated on a narrow strip of land between the Tasman Sea and the Illawarra escarpment, although settlement does extend some distance up the lush green forested escarpment via a series of small steep roads. Tree species are generally of the rainforest variety: cabbage tree palm, red cedar and lillypilly with an understorey including rough tree fern. The flowering eucalypts attract many insects which, in turn, draw many bird species.

History
If it hadn't been for a heavy surf Captain Cook would have made his first landing in NSW within the Illawarra, though he did note, in his log book, the attractive appearance of the shore and the presence of Aborigines - the Wodi Wodi around Wollongong and the Tharawal in the north - who had been in the area for at least 20 000 years.

The first Europeans to officially set foot in the vicinity and to meet the Aborigines of the Illawarra were explorers George Bass and Matthew Flinders and their servant William Martin in 1796, who were sailing south in the tiny boat Tom Thumb.

The following year the survivors of the wreck of the Sydney Cove passed through the area. The ship had developed a leak and beached on the Furneaux Islands in Bass Strait. Seventeen of the crew set out by boat for help but were wrecked at Point Hicks in Victoria and continued the journey by land. Only three survived the harrowing trip to Sydney, thereby becoming the first Europeans to make an overland trip in Australia of any duration.

At Governor Hunter's request, Bass made another eight-day trip to the Illawarra with two of the Cove's men, intended to search out two crewmen left behind in the area and to investigate the survivors' reports of coal. This Bass found at Coalcliff and elsewhere at the northern end of the Illawarra, though it would be fifty years before the seams of the Illawarra were exploited.

Early recipients of land grants in the area were John Carn, Robert Westmacott, and William Barton John Daly, although it is not clear that any of them took up residence on them. Settlement initially occurred around Bulli, to the south, with a small hamlet developing at nearby Austinmer around 1860. Coledale was then bushland. Early residents in the area mostly grazed cattle.

A bush track called Clifton Road was developed between Bulli and Clifton around 1868. An improved road (known as Main Road) was constructed between 1879 and 1886, after the opening of the mine at Coalcliff. This later became part of Lawrence Hargrave Drive.

A prominent early businessman was Clem Carrick who, for 22 years, operated a small but busy sawmill called Coledale Timbers. However, there were still very few people living at Coledale before the North Illawarra Coal Company opened the North Bulli mine (at present-day Austinmer) in 1886. A 260-metre jetty was built north of the Austinmer headland to ship the coal and a private railway line linked up with the jetty by the end of 1886.

On June 7, 1887, the vessel Waratah was loading coal from the jetty when a wind blew up and the anchor began to drag. The mooring rope snapped and the ship drifted onto reef rocks which tore a hole in its side, 300 metres north of the jetty. The fittings and engine were salvaged but the hull was there for many years. The boiler proved too heavy to salvage, remaining there until 1967 when it was cut up. The jetty was abandoned in the late 1890s. It later partially collapsed then was destroyed by fire in 1915.

A railway line between Wollongong and Clifton opened in 1887, with the line extending all the way through to Sydney by the following year when tunnels were completed at Coalcliff and Waterfall. At the time the nearest station was at Bulli.

A second mine, also linked to the jetty via a railway line, opened a mile further north of the first mine in 1889 but it folded in 1898 owing to flooding problems. However, this mine served as the basis for the North Bulli Colliery (later renamed Coledale Colliery), which commenced operations in November 1903 after preparations and surveys commenced in early 1902. It had its own railway siding and was managed by Thomas Cater until his death in 1912.

The Coledale Railway Station opened in September 1902, about 100 meters from its present site (the present platform was built in1912). It originally possessed a post and telegraph office. This is the earliest known example of the name 'Coledale' being attached to the area. It was thought to be a misspelling of 'Coaldale.'

The North Bulli Mine was soon employing 100 men and a township was surveyed in November 1903 and allotments sold by auction. Production increased at the mines when coal-cutting machines were installed in 1904.

A coke works was built at Coledale in 1905, with fifty coke ovens in operation, producing 100 tons of coke each day, entailing the usage of two locomotives and 150 wagons. Another fifty were added by 1908 and the mine was considered the third-largest in New South Wales by the following year. The coke was shipped to Lithgow and Cobar and the coal went south for shipment from the company's jetty at Port Kembla. In 1910, John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the man with the donkey at the Gallipoli campaign, worked at the Coledale colliery.

The town's development was evident in the formation of the Coledale Progress Association in 1907, the opening of Anglican, Catholic and Methodist churches in 1908 and the opening, after much petitioning, of a local school to supplement the one at Austinmer. It initially had 147 students, peaking at 293 in 1921.

Surf lifesaving started in Coledale as early as 1913. The popularity of beach-going led to regulations requiring all persons over eight years of age to wear neck-to-knee costumes, all males to keep away from the part of the beach allocated to women and no soap permitted in the rock baths.

Electricity replaced oil and kerosene lamps and candles at Coledale in 1914. Prior to that time only the Coledale mine manager had electricity in his home. The Coledale Hospital (still operating) opened in 1915 and silent movies were screened at the Empire Hall (seating 658) from 1917. It was located roughly where the present child-care centre is situated. In 1918, the water supply was connected, supplanting the need to collect water individually from the creek.

The North Bulli Colliery closed down in 1926. The hard times of the Depression saw short-lived attempts to revive both the mine and cokeworks. It was re-established in 1942, the year the local RSL (still in operation) was formed. When the mine closed in 1974 it was the last in NSW to be still using pit ponies in mine shafts. The Empire Theatre closed in 1959, to be replaced by a rugby league club.

Bushfires along the escarpment caused alarm and some damage in the area in 1952, 1957, 1968 and again in the late 1990s. Other events that loom large in local memories are the mauling of a 13-year-old boy by a shark at Coledale in 1966 and a landslide in 1988 which caused the collapse of a house near the railway station, killing two people.

Things to see:  

Beaches
Coledale has two principal swimming beaches - Coledale and Sharky's. Both are reasonably lengthy, both have plenty of parking space and both are fringed by very fine rock platforms for investigating rock pools. The main beach has a camping reserve (tel: 02 4227 5545) on the grassy foreshore, an amenities block, a surf lifesaving club and an ocean pool.

On the southern side of the shops is another good, long beach with plentiful parking, although it is not patrolled. Sharky's Beach is the next beach to the south and can be reached, except at high tide, by foot from the main beach. It is on the southern side of the shops. Just north of Sharky's, back toward the main beach, is a small pool filled with ocean water.

Whale Watching
Whales can be seen off the shore at Coledale from May (sometime not until June), as they head north for warmer waters. They can sometimes be seen again around August to October, as they return with young calves to the Southern Ocean. Humpback and southern right whales are the most common species.