The Gunnamatta Bay is a small bay in

southern Sydney Southern Sydney is the southern metropolitan area of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Southern Sydney includes the suburbs in the local government areas of Georges River Council and part of Bayside Council (collectively known ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Gunnamatta Bay is located off the

Port Hacking Port Hacking Estuary ( Aboriginal Tharawal language: ''Deeban''), an open youthful tide dominated, drowned valley estuary, is located in southern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia approximately south of Sydney central business district. Port ...

estuary, in the

Sutherland Shire Sutherland Shire is a local government area in the southern region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Sutherland Shire comprises an area of and as at the had an estimated population of . Sutherland Shire is colloquially ...

. The foreshore is a natural boundary for the suburbs of

Cronulla Cronulla is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Boasting numerous surf beaches and swimming spots, the suburb attracts both tourists and Greater Sydney residents. Cronulla is located 26 kilometres south of the Sydney ...

to the east,

Woolooware Woolooware is a suburb in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Woolooware is located south of the Sydney central business district in the Sutherland Shire. It shares the 2230 postcode with Cronulla. Woolooware stretches ...

to the north and Burraneer to the west.

Transport

Cronulla and National Park Ferry Cruises Cronulla and National Park Ferry Cruises is a ferry operator on Port Hacking in Southern Sydney Australia. It operates a scheduled service from Cronulla to Bundeena at the northern end of Royal National Park making the ferry service popular w ...

operate a ferry service from the wharf on Gunnamatta Bay, which provides a link between Cronulla and Bundeena across Port Hacking, on the edge of the

Royal National Park The Royal National Park is a protected national park that is located in Sutherland Shire in the Australian state of New South Wales, just south of Sydney. The national park is about south of the Sydney central business district near the local ...

Parks

Gunnamatta Park and Darook Park are located on its eastern foreshore. Tonkin Oval on the northern foreshore features a large cricket oval and is also used for baseball. Cronulla Public School is located nearby. Gunnamatta park holds a valuable remnant of bushland canopy and a more limited but equally valuable understorey remnant. An unusual but natural occurrence of Rough-Barked Apple-Gums (''Angophora floribunda'') grow in the park and are usually typical of the nearby Wianamatta Shale soil as opposed the Hawkesbury Sandstone on the site; this tree is virtually extinct in the Sutherland shire due to a complete lack of comprehensive reserves on shale soils, though this tree is still relatively common on the Cumberland Plain in western Sydney and elsewhere in Australia Earth.

History

Matthew Flinders Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...

and

George Bass George Bass (; 30 January 1771 – after 5 February 1803) was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia. Early years Bass was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George ...

explored and mapped the coastline and Port Hacking estuary in 1796 and the southernmost point of Cronulla is named Bass and Flinders Point, in their honour. Thomas Holt (1811–88) owned most of the land that stretched from Sutherland to Cronulla in the 1860s. The area around the bay was subdivided in 1895 and land was offered for sale at 10 pounds per acre. In 1899, the government named the area Gunnamatta, which means ''sandy hills''. On 26 February 1908 it was officially changed to Cronulla and Gunnamatta was used for the name of the bay, on the western side. Cronulla is derived from ''kurranulla'', meaning ''place of the pink seashells'' in the dialect of the area's Aboriginal inhabitants, the

Dharawal people The Dharawal people, also spelt Tharawal and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people, identified by the Dharawal language. Traditionally, they lived as hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans with ties of kinship, s ...

. The beaches were named by Surveyor Robert Dixon who surveyed here in 1827-28 and by 1840, the main beach was still known as Karranulla.

Gallery

File:Gunnamatta Pavilion.JPG, Gunnamatta Pavilion File:Gunnamatta Park.JPG, Gunnamatta Park File:Tonkin Oval Cronulla.JPG, Tonkin Oval, Cronulla File:Cronulla Burraneer 2.JPG, Gunnamatta Bay, view from Burraneer File:Gunnamatta Pavilion 2.JPG, Gunnamatta Pavilion File:2021-04-02 Gunnamatta Bay, Cronulla, NSW.jpg, Aerial view

References

{{Bays of New South Wales , state=autocollapse Geography of Sydney Bays of New South Wales Sutherland Shire