Woonona, New South Wales

Infobox Australian Place | type = suburb
name = Woonona
city = Wollongong
state = nsw


caption =
lga = City of Wollongong
postcode = 2517
coordinates = coord|34|20|30|S|150|54|22|E|display=inline,title
est =
pop = 10,882 [Census 2006 AUS | id = SSC15291 | name = Woonona (State Suburb)|quick=on|accessdate=2008-08-15]
elevation=
area =
propval =
stategov = Keira
fedgov = Cunningham
near-nw =
near-n = Bulli
near-ne =
near-w =
near-e =
near-sw =
near-s = Russell Vale
near-se = Bellambi
dist1 =
location1=

Woonona (pronounced "Wh-noo-na"; IPAEng|w.ˈnuː.nə) is a northern suburb of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, on the northern area of the Illawarra coastal plain. It is served by Woonona Station on the South Coast (Illawarra) Line, and by the Princes Highway.

The suburb has a strip of commerce along the highway and several historic buildings. It is mostly light density residential, though some new two storey buildings have been made. The local beach is known for surfing conditions and surfers frequent it during high wave times. A good swell will bring in many locals. With there being a variety of breaks including the northern side of the rocks, the southern side and the famous "Dorrigo Ave" break.

Geography

To the west of Woonona is the Woronora Plateau, averaging a height of 400 metres near the suburb, and the eastern edge of this, known as the Illawarra Escarpment. A narrow coastal plain falls quickly to the Pacific coast in the east. The escarpment is heavily forested. Woonona has a beach and a promontory, Waniora Point, with a kiosk. The Wollongong to Thirroul Bike Track goes along the beachside park. A low ridge from the escarpment makes a marked hill over which the Princes Highway traverses, making Woonona's commercial strip mildly raised above the north and south of it. The mountain directly west of Woonona was called "Woonona" by the aboriginals and it is now known as Woonona Mountain.

History

Woonona was the site of the first attempted landing in Australia by Captain James Cook on April 28, 1770. A small plaque, erected on the spot in 1970, commemorates the event.

Its economy in the 1800s was primarily dairy farming and timber-getting. The timber industry was so intensive that photographs from the early twentieth century show the escarpment bare. Practically the only trees remaining from before this period are cabbage palms ("Livistona australis"). Most of the timber was shipped north to Sydney for construction. Cattle grazing took place on the coastal strip, and did not stop completely until the 1970s.

Another early product was coal, which has been mined at a number of sites between 1857 and the present. Bricks were also manufactured adjacent to clay quarries on the hills above the suburb. The old Boral brickworks, now the housing area of Edgewood Estate, was one of the last refuges of the endangered green and gold bell frog. The estate is set to contain over 1000 houses, covering the old brickworks, an access road that once lead to houses higher up the mountain (called Black track by the locals) and the land south to the small storm water creek.

As recently as the 1970s, Woonona was a mostly working-class area, characterised by small houses and extensive open space. More recently, its proximity to the much larger city of Sydney to the north, and its beach frontage, have resulted in the construction of many large, modern houses.

Much of the foreshore was originally coastal wetlands, but these have been filled in. The largest such area is occupied by Ocean Park on Carrington Road, which was filled by tip operations that ended in the early 1980s. There is a small remnant wetland just to the west of Ocean Park, on Lawrence Street.

References