If you love a good horror story, did you know that Milton-Ulladulla has one its very own? Here are your clues – a man’s heart-stopping dream predicting nearby disaster, widespread floods, desperate cries for help, the killing and eating of a small dog, the grisly discovery of a severed arm, and maybe even a mutinous murder.
On 20 January 1883, the popular broadsheet publication ‘Australian Town and Country Journal‘ published a unique insight into the district of Milton-Ulladulla. Called ‘Southern Pencillings‘ and attributed to ‘The Raven’, it included several line drawings featuring Pigeon House mountain, Lake Conjola, Airlie House and Ulladulla Harbour.
In July 2017 it was 75 years since our coastal shipping came under savage attack from a giant Japanese submarine known as the I-11. Unfortunately most records of the Japanese activities on the coast were destroyed following the war, so details are limited.
Bernard Brown, ancestor of a number of Milton Ulladulla residents, arrived in NSW as a free settler in November, 1848. His diaries, diligently maintained for well over two decades, were treasured by his descendants and later passed on to the Mitchell library. They have been a valuable resource for researching the history of the Shoalhaven District. Being of humble birth and having limited education, his writing, spelling and punctuation make deciphering his diaries a little like reading hieroglyphics.
In April 1770 Captain James Cook sailed past Ulladulla as he made his way up the coast in HMS Endeavour and then, in January 1788, the First Fleet arrived in Port Jackson (later Sydney) bringing convicts, marines and a few free settlers to the new colony of New South Wales.