Map - Broulee, New South Wales (Broulee)

Broulee (Broulee)
Broulee is a town on the south coast of New South Wales between Batemans Bay and Moruya. At the, the town had a population of 1,717. Just off the beach is Broulee Island, currently joined to the mainland, but in past years the connecting spit has been covered by water, at times a very deep navigable channel with a strong current.

The first harbour in the area south of Batemans Bay was established at Broulee behind what is now known as the island. Although settlement had already commenced on the shores of the nearby Moruya River, it was not easily navigable due to a sandbar at its mouth.

The Broulee area was surveyed and gazetted in 1837, a town plan made by James Larmer in 1839, and land sales commenced in 1840. At that time a post office was opened with mail being delivered each week over the mountains from Braidwood. Henry Clarke took up farming in the Broulee area in the 1840s after emigrating from Ireland. The first court in the district was established also in 1840 and in 1841 Broulee was made the centre of a police district which covered the area from Jervis Bay to Eden, New South Wales.

In 1841 a flood washed away the sandbar at the mouth of the Moruya River. Land up the river was for sale from 1848 and the Moruya town site surveyed in 1850 and the town gazetted in 1851. That year gold was discovered at Araluen inland from Moruya and near Braidwood. The road from Moruya to Araluen became the preferred route and the functions that had been at Broulee shifted to the growing town of Moruya.

In 1859 the court, including the building, was relocated to Moruya. The building of the Erin-go-Bragh Hotel was also shifted from Broulee Island to Campbell St, Moruya. The inn building was first used as a store and later became the storekeeper's home. The building was demolished in 1978 as part of the development of the new Eurobodalla Shire offices. Footings of the inn building can still be seen on the island to this day.

Broulee harbour was lost in 1873 as removal of vegetation for an access road on the land spit eroded the spit and isolated what is now known as Broulee Island. In the last decades of the twentieth century, the spit or tombolo has reformed.

 
Map - Broulee (Broulee)
Country - Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7617930 km2, Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately 65,000 years ago, during the last ice age. Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world. Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was the first known European to reach Australia, in 1606. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain, and the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney in 1788 to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. The European population grew in subsequent decades, and by the end of the 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing British colonies established. Democratic parliaments were gradually established through the 19th century, culminating with a vote for the federation of the six colonies and foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
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AUD Australian dollar $ 2
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EN English language
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