Stanwell Park

Beachfront Stanwell Park as seen from Bald Hill , with the Sea Cliff Bridge and the main town of Wollongong in the distance.

State :	Australia Australia
State :	New South Wales
Founded :	1824

Coordinates :	34 ° 13 ′ S , 150 ° 59 ′ E Coordinates: 34 ° 13 ′ S , 150 ° 59 ′ E-34.216666666667 150.98333333333
Area :	1.3 km²

Residents :	1,389 (2016)
Population density :	1068 inhabitants per km²

Time zone :	AEST (UTC + 10)
Postal code :	2508

LGA :

City of Wollongong

Stanwell Park

Stanwell Park is a small coastal town in the north of the Wollongong City administrative district of the Illawarra region in Australia . It is cooped up between the escarpment of the Illawarra Escarpment and the Tasman Sea of the Pacific Ocean . Only the Royal National Park separates it from the metropolis of Sydney and is therefore surrounded by pure nature. Stanwell Park has about 1400 residents.

history

The first known Stanwell Park painting by Henry Grant Lloyd, 1860. (Courtesy of the Mitchell Library )

Stanwell Park was the name of a farm in the country granted to Matthew John Gibbons in 1824. He was given the majority of the area of Little Bulli , which included what is now Stanwell Park and the neighboring town of Coalcliff . The entire north of the Illawarra was known by the Aboriginal name Bulli , which means as much as rise , the only thing left to do in the narrow coastal strip and the indentations of the northern Illawarra. Bulli is still the name of an Illawarra village further south of Stanwell Park.

The area was originally settled by the Wadi Wadi Aboriginal group . For the first time by Europeans it was traversed hundreds of miles along the coast in an adventurous journey by three shipwrecked people, who were then rescued in Wattamolla further north in today's Royal National Park . Two of the companions failed to cross the Coal Cliffs at what is now the Sea Cliff Bridge . They were apparently murdered, their remains were found by the explorer George Bass , who also reported for the first time about the rich coal seam exposed in the cliffs.

Mr. Gibbons hired ex-convict John Paid to manage his Stanwell Park farm . However, he used the remote valley as a hiding place and base point for his gang of outlaws. He took the name Woloo Jack . His gang terrorized the area from Bargo to Liverpool until the entire gang ended on the gallows in 1829.

The area, which was ideal for gliding flights due to its topography and wind conditions, was the residence and experimental site of Lawrence Hargrave in the 1890s , who was the first Australian to take off there in 1894 with a box kite he had developed. A street on Bald Hill is named after him that leads to a memorial to the inventor.

activities

Stanwell Park has a beautiful beach and one of the oldest rescue sports clubs in the world, the Helensburgh-Stanwell Park Surf Life Saving Club , founded in 1908. The latter secures the lifeguard station on weekends and holidays and conducts numerous activities such as nippers and winter swimming.

Access

The place is accessible by CityRail from Sydney and Wollongong. From the north you can drive down the steep slope of Bald Hill by road or you can reach Stanwell Park from the south via the Sea Cliff Bridge along the coast.

References

Michael Adams, "Little Bulli: The Pioneering of Stanwell Park and Northern Illawarra Till the 1860s," Cultural Exchange International Pty. Ltd (2005), ISBN 0-9758187-1-6 .
Michael Adams, "Wind Beneath his Wings: Lawrence Hargrave at Stanwell Park," Cultural Exchange International Pty. Ltd (2005), ISBN 0-9758187-0-8 .

Web links

Commons : Stanwell Park, New South Wales - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Australian Bureau of Statistics : Stanwell Park ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2020.

[abs-1] Australian Bureau of Statistics : Stanwell Park ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2020.