Royal National Park Coastal Cabin Communities are heritage-listed cabin communities in the Royal National Park, Lilyvale, City of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. They were built from 1930 to 1950 by private citizens using their own initiative, resources and labour. It refers to the specific communities of Little Garie, Era and Burning Palms, also known collectively as the Royal National Park Coastal Shack Communities. The area is owned by the Office of Environment and Heritage. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 April 2012.
History
In the 1870s Sydney was expanding at a rapid pace, helped partly by the extension of the railway network, but railroads needed a helping hand to make them viable and keep them expanding. Premier of New South Wales John Robertson believed this could be achieved by encouraging people to take train rides to the countryside. At the time, appreciation of the wilderness was a growing trend in Sydney and around the world, and the world's first national park was proclaimed in the United States at Yellowstone in 1872. Robertson was also concerned about both logging and the growth of the city continuing unchecked without green spaces. In 1879 he proclaimed an area south of Sydney as a national park. In 1954 Queen Elizabeth II travelled through the park by train and in 1955 it became the Royal National Park.
The cabin communities of Little Garie, Era, and Burning Palms and were generally built between the late-1930s and early-1950s on freehold land with the permission of the landholder or the person holding grazing rights. The land at Portions 1, 7, 13, 44, 47 and 48 Parish Bulgo, County of Westmoreland are collectively known as the "Era Lands". Portion 1, the largest portion, was a grant in 1832 to Andrew Byrne. On Byrne's death, , the land was managed by a Trust along with other property of Byrne for the benefit of the Trustees. The other portions were in various ownership; Portions 13 and 44, where Little Garie is sited, were owned by the Adams and Collaery families respectively.
Byrne, who held land in Sydney and Appin, ran cattle on these lands and this was continued by his descendants who used the Burgh track to move cattle to and from the area. This track was later used by Helensburgh miners and people fishing to get to the coast in what later became the cabin areas.
The Aboriginal sites recorded within and around the cabin groupings provide evidence of the long Aboriginal use and occupation of this area. This association was continued during the pastoral use period and oral history indicates that the first hut was built at Era by the Aboriginal stockman "Old Tom" and that it was present in about 1910-1912. Tom was employed to look after the cattle on the land that supplied meat to southern Sydney and the Illawarra. This cabin was later taken over by the Lightfoot family of Helensburgh, and today is believed to be cabin No. 88.
In the 1910s and 1920s people from the nearby mining town of Helensburgh often visited the coast and camped in the area, usually to fish. During the Depression, the number of campers and occupants increased with extended periods of occupation. Little Garie was known as Tin Hut at this time. The Collaery family allowed the building of cabins on the area they owned or had grazing rights over. In the late 1930s Robert Gray, who had a World War I soldier settler grant on top of the escarpment, obtained a grazing lease from the Trustees of the Byrne Estate. Gray allowed the building of shacks, allocated sites for them and collected rent, initially a shilling a week, rising to 2 shillings per week by the 1940s.
During the mid-to-later 1930s more bushwalkers from Sydney discovered the area as a recreation resource, some arriving from the adjoining National Park with others making their way down the ridge to what were termed "hide away" villages in the press of the time.
During World War II and immediately after, the numbers of huts grew as people from Sydney joined those from Helensburgh. This reflects a pattern of social and workplace reforms in NSW at that time including the introduction of annual leave in 1944. In 1944 there were approximately 38 cabins at Era, 13 at Little Garie and 15 at Burning Palms. At this time a number of Sydney artists "found" Era and people such as Margaret Olley, Max Dupain, David Moore, Hal Missingham and many others visited and stayed at the community.