The Entrance - Culture and History

In 1796 shipwrecked fishermen landed on the coast. They were fed by the local Aborigines who guided them most of the way home. When they returned to Sydney they told of a white woman living amongst the indigenous peoples and this resulted in an excursion to find the woman. The search party became the first Europeans to discover Tuggerah Lake.

The first European settler was Henry Holden who, in 1828, selected 260 ha at Picnic Point. Thomas Batley took up land in 1836. Chinese fishermen established a base in the late 1820s at what is now Toowoon Bay (still known to some as Chinamans Bay). There they cured and smoked their fish and sent them to Queensland, back to China and, later, to the goldfields. They settled at Picnic Point after the goldrushes were over. This area was also a loading point for locally cut timber.

The last Aborigine to frequent Tuggerah Lake on his bark canoe was Billy Fawkner who died in 1875. He was known as 'the last of the Brisbane Water blackfellows', the remainder of his tribe killed by disease and dispossessed of their land.

Known by a number of names over the years - Toowoon Bay, Tuggerah Beach, Karagi (the Aboriginal name for the channel) - the settlement around the channel became The Entrance when the post office opened under that name in 1911.

Tourism got under way in the late 19th century with a new emphasis on health and leisure in the culture and the completion of the rail line from Sydney to Newcastle in 1889. Sydneysiders began to travel by launch from the train station at Wyong or from Sydney direct by seaboat, to fish, bath and walk in the area. A holiday camp was established at Toowoon Bay in the early 1890s and the first guesthouse in the area opened at North Entrance in 1895.

The first school opened in 1915 and the first church was built in 1926. Growth remained slow until the 1920s but, in that decade, The Entrance became a popular tourist spot for people drawn by the fishing and beaches. The first bridge linking the two sides of the channel was erected in 1934. The Entrance has been a particularly popular tourist destination since the freeway was built in the 1960s.

Anglers will find the area good for flathead, whiting, bream, blackfish and prawns. The sea-wall adjoining the boatshed near the bridge is a good spot for blackfish. Surf fishing from November to April yields jewfish, whiting and tailor.

The lake is the principal coastal lagoon of an interconnected 80 sq km lake system. At its northern tip a narrow channel separates it from Budgewoi Lake which is joined, at its north-eastern corner, to Lake Munmorah. Tuggerah Lake is about 12 x 8 km in diameter. The three lagoons are separated from the Pacific Ocean by long, narrow peninsulas but share common access to the ocean at The Entrance. Less than 2 m deep on average, shark-free and fed by small streams such as Wyong Creek the lakes are ideal for waterskiing, canoeing, sailing, rowing and sailboarding. The lakes and foreshores were cleaned up and restored in the late 1980s. Tuggerah Lake is also ideal for anglers. Blackfish, whiting, mullet, snapper, bream, flounder, tailor, flathead, jewfish, tarwhine and crabs can all be caught from the foreshores. Prawns are usually plentiful in mid-summer and can be snared at night with a lamp and net by wading into the shallows.