Today as your amble along the northern side of Bawley Point's headland you are greeted with nature's beauty.
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The headline overlooks the deep clear blue waters which glisten on a golden autumn morning.
You might scamper along the black rock ledge, surfboard under your arm, anticipating the best ride ever on the infamous surf break off 'Guillotine' or maybe as you laze back on a warm Sunday afternoon dangling your legs over the jetty taking in the sunset.
In this idyllic setting, it is pretty hard to imagine what the landscape and life on the headland might have looked like 100 years ago.
However, the headland itself, from 1892 to 1922, was the site of a bustling timber milling industry with a large sawmill, a blacksmith shop, a post office and several workers cottages and a jetty and cranes to load the timber on waiting ships.
The first guest house was built here and the remains of its garden and its foundations are well hidden in the tangle of current years of overgrowth.
Axed and hand-sawn timber was hauled in from the Termeil forests by massive bullock teams and then on tramlines by horse teams of eight in single file, to be milled and sawn and then sent on to Sydney and other ports by boat.
This history is about to come to life again as the Bawley Point Kioloa Community Association in partnership with Shoalhaven City Council, plan and develop 'The Gantry History Walk.
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Community project team leader, Allan Baptist outlined the group's plan.
"It is proposed that a walkway of 150m length would gently weave past the original sites where rustic timber seats and metal display panels will be placed in five sites presenting images and descriptions of the past," he said.
"It ends on a small viewing platform overlooking a majestic panorama and the gantry and stands right where the timber would have been lifted from the mill and onto the ships heading onward to 'feed' the voracious building industry needs of a burgeoning nation.
"It's a wonderful, important and timely project that allows our history to be seen and remembered by us all long into the future."
Little evidence remains of this part of our local history - apart from rusting ring bolts, stone and concrete footings, a corrugated water tank, a winching machine and a fig tree from the guest house.
However, this project opens up the past which was a keystone to the growing culture and early identity of Bawley Point, Kioloa and its people.
"It allows us to follow the path of change that has led to our present," Mr Baptist said.
"So imagine now as you wander the shoreline of Bawley Headland the shrill sounds of giant saws ripping into timber, the clang of the Blacksmith's hammer on iron, the sweating horse teams dragging a new load of logs along a roughly built tramline and the high pitched whistle of a ship sounding from the north as it signals its arrival to collect its load."
The project is still in the design and planning stage and awaiting final approvals and funding. Go to bawleykioloa.org.au for more information.