AN extract from The Shoalhaven News and South Coast District Advertiser: Saturday, November 30, 1935.
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Sir – I recently paid a visit to your charming coastal town and as a wanderer all over Australia during the past 70 years, the most part of which has been in NSW, I thought that some of my impressions about your district might not be uninteresting to your readers.
And firstly, there are not many towns on the shores of Australia that can boast a greater variety of wealth and delightful scenery than Nowra.
It has nature's own repertoire of mountain, valley, plain, river, bay and coast, and in addition that extra human beauty given it by farmlet, plantation and artificial groves.
Nowhere among all the coastal towns that I have visited can there be found a greater number and variety of delightful picnic and recreation places than in your district, from Cambewarra Mountain and Kangaroo Valley on the one side to Huskisson, Jervis Bay, and St George's Basin on the coast line.
Such being the case, it is astonishing me that Nowra is not more than twice as large as its present size.
It should be far away the largest and most prosperous town on all the coast line south of Sydney.
Now sir what is the reason of this apparent inertia in its progress!
A town like it in the United States would be boomed; and that is a great fault of ours in Australia.
We have mountain and valley and cultivatable scenery equal to any in the world, and beaches as white and lovely as any at Honolulu, which the Yankees are for ever belauding.
We are either too apathetic, or else we are ignorantly not alive to the beauty which is latent in this our fair and peaceful land of Australia.
We over modestly keep quiet about the various beauty spots adjacent to our towns and even in some cases impose obstacles to their easy access by visitors; as evidence a visit to Jervis Bay the other day.
When I had to whistle and wait at a locked gate right across the main road until a little child with a key came and opened it.
Of all the absurdities on a main road that I have ever seen, this beat the lot.
And when I got within the precinct of Jervis Bay settlement the beauty and convenience of its arrangements intensified my wonder at the absurdity of that locked gate.
Are the residents of Nowra jealous of Jervis Bay, and is that the reason why such an excessive charge of ten shilling in the fare is made from Nowra to the Bay, when you can travel all the way from Sydney for a shade more than half the price.
The Bay is an attraction to visitors to Nowra and surely is would pay its business interests to subsidise a service at half the price, say 5/- , and thus make the Bay a Nowra suburb!
This is an age of progress, of quick and cheap movement, and I foresee that Nowra will be five times its present size when the Princes Highway becomes a railway right through to Melbourne.
More population is what Australia needs, and more population is what will immensely benefit all sections of Nowra population.
THE next general meeting of the Shoalhaven Historical Society will be held at 7.30pm on Monday, August 25 at Nowra Museum, corner of Kinghorne and Plunkett streets, Nowra.
This meeting will be the 2014 annual general meeting.
Guest speaker for the evening will be prolific local historian Robyn Florance who will be sharing her latest research on the Berry Half Squadron of Lancers.
General meetings of the historical society are open to all members of the public with an interest in local history.
We encourage all likeminded souls to come along and join us for some history, a cuppa and good company.