In fact it was her parents Os and Alma McClelland who built the cottage in the 1920s and lived there for 15 years, running the Tuckerbox Cafe from the location.

They also built a factory, located just north of the home on the opposite side of the road in which they manufactured their own brand of ice cream, Mountain Mist.

“Dad built the house before I was born,” she said.

“He came back from World War I and worked on farms and different things before marrying my mother – the home looked down the valley over the Lumsden Farm at Beaumont.

“At one stage he worked for the [Postmaster General’s Department] and also for the Department of Main Roads board for many years.”

Mrs Newing was born and christened at the site (in the home’s dining room) and lived there until her teenage years with her older sisters Heather and Jean.

Although Jean passed away more than a decade ago Heather is still alive and in her 90s, having just moved into Clelland Lodge.

“Growing up on the mountain was a great experience,” said Mrs Newing who turns 82 this year.

“Dad must have been a pretty good builder as the home has been there all this time,” she said.

“We had no electricity, no sealed roads – tough times but good time.

“Mum would serve morning and afternoons teas in a big fernery at the side of the house.

“Dad manufactured Mountain Mist ice cream, which was pretty popular. People still remember him and Mum running the soft drink, ice cream and fruit stall at the Nowra and Valley shows.

“It was a great playground. We didn’t have sports and things like that, we made our own fun. Some of the vines growing in the bush were the best monkey swings ever.

“Me and my sisters must have climbed every tree on the property.”

She went to Beaumont School for nine years.

“Uncle Bill Lumsden built a weather shed and in later years they held dances there, as well as in the Priddle barn,” she said.

“Bill Condie had a button accordion and he supplied the music.

“We used to have school picnics over at Joe McMahon’s place out near Bellawongarah.

“We had some great days out there.”

The McClellands’ home became the central drop-off point for the community.

“The farmers from around the mountain would bring their milk by cart and slides to opposite our house and the milk lorries would pick them up from there and leave the empty cans,” she said.

“The milk lorries were a great way of getting things like parcels moved around the district.

“In the early years the baker in Kangaroo Valley used to deliver the bread to our place three days a week for all the farmers around the district, while the mail was also dropped off at our place.

“Dr Frank Ryan would travel to the Valley once a fortnight or a month and anyone around the mountain who needed to see the doctor came to our dining room and he turned that into a surgery – you don’t get that attention these days.”

She remembers the home having two bedrooms with one verandah.

Her father built a little shop with glass front double doors and then added another verandah on the Cambewarra side.

“I can remember going with Dad into Nowra to Jim Kelly’s cordial factory and getting the big blocks of ice to keep the cordial cool in the hot summers – he’d bring the ice home in corn bags,” she said.

“I don’t know who named it – it was never The Eyrie when we had it, I think it was just a recent thing.”

She was also able to recall some of the other families that had lived in the property over the years.

That included Blanche Wallis and her daughters, the Suckows who ran the Cambewarra Lookout, the Zandstras and eventually Bob and Jean Lumsden when the post office transferred up there from Beaumont in 1968, where it operated through until 1984 when it closed.