Sunday 7 August 2022
Photos courtesy of Mary and Peter
Bushwalkers explored another pocket of Eurobodalla National Park on a sunny Sunday morning. This was an Easy 5 km walk at Moruya South Head, starting at the Quandolo Island carpark. The carpark is adjacent to a backwater of the Moruya River which was once a thriving port before the granite breakwalls were built. There you can still find the rusting remains of an old jetty.
It was dead low tide so we were able to walk across the river mudflats and through the mangroves to Quandolo Island to circumnavigate it before heading over to Shelly Beach for a morning tea break on the grass above the beach. Then it was up the hill to Toragy Point, stopping on the way at the lookout to admire the view north to Guerilla Bay.
We paused at the historic cemetery at Toragy Point where we found the headstone for the first burial on the Point – that of Mary Jane Wyatt who died in 1858 aged 3 months. Her father was a punt operator, then Agent for the Illawarra Steam Navigation Company, and lived near Preddy’s Wharf. The Wyatt family buried another child, Sarah Ann 4 years later.
The best-preserved headstone is that of Joseph Loutitt who died in 1895. All of the headstones were badly vandalised in the 1970’s, and the Loutitt family rescued the broken stone, reinforced it, re-erected it, and put a plaque on the back of it detailing Joseph’s life. He was the original Loutitt to travel to Australia and eventually settled in Moruya where he owned and ran the southside granite quarry. This information comes from the excellent Moruya & District Historical Society website at mdsociety.com Search for Toragy to find the story of Toragy Point Cemetery.
After leaving Toragy, walkers descended on the coastal bushtrack with views south along Dolphin Beach, and then turned inland again to the carpark.
Karen