Jervis Bay – Moona Creek footbridge.

1903 Life around the bay hadn’t changed a great deal from the early 1800’s. The biggest change was the growth in tourism. The shipbuilding industry led by the Dent family was in decline. The Dents themselves started to diversify and cater to the growing tourists. The bay was becoming popular with holiday makers, encouraged by numerous newspaper articles written by traveling correspondents calling attention to the beauty of this untamed landscape.

”Where the weather came from”.
Before this media attention,  Jervis Bay to Sydney-siders was only known as ‘where the weather came from”

Today without much effort we can travel easily between Huskisson and Vincentia. In 1903, what we now find so simple, presented considerable challenges.

2015 - Moona Creek, is passed over every day by hundreds of travelers, in 1903 Moona Creek presented quite an obstacle, always flowing with water and surrounded by low lying wet land, the only way to get between Huskisson North and Huskisson South (now Vincentia), was to take a long and winding journey inland around the far reaches of the creek or wade across the creek at low tide.

”Looking with longing eyes”.
Below is from an article in the Shoalhaven Telegraph, Wednesday 7th January 1903.
A correspondent writing from Jervis Bay, wishes to draw attention, through the columns of the Telegraph, to the great need of a foot bridge across Moona Creek. Now that Jervis Bay is becoming a grand place for tourists, it would be a great boon, he points out, to many if they could extend their walk along the beach beyond the creek mentioned. He noticed, when at Moona Creek on New Years Day, numbers of ladies and gentlemen looking with longing eyes to the beach beyond, and, no doubt, wishing to get across. It would only take a few pounds to do all that is necessary.

 
It took another 23 years before a foot bridge was erected in 1926. Remnants of the bridge can still be discovered projecting from the rocks. The bridge was eventually washed away in a flood.









Continue reading about Moona Moona Creek.