Southern New South Wales Coast Australia

The New South Wales south coast is peppered with nooks and crannies

that fill it with seductive charm.

The beauty of this coast is that, big as it is, it still somehow,

in some places, manages to feel small, intimate, endearingly modest.

You could call it the protected coast,

fiercely safeguarded by the locals.

Joining me on this journey,

Professor Tim Flannery explores a wartime mystery

linking Australia to a lost British treasure.

Who actually is the owner of the ingot?

I'm not prepared to go into that, Tim.

Dr Alice Garner revisits a yacht race with life and death stakes.

160kph winds, with gusts to 200kph.

And I look into the story of a killer whale

that helped men hunt other whales.

I really, really hope it's more than just a folktale.

This is Coast Australia.

In this episode, we explore from Seven Mile Beach,

along the sparkling Sapphire Coast,

to Gabo Island on the Victorian side of the border.

Heading south from Wollongong is a deceptively treacherous stretch

of coast, where unpredictable swells crash eternally

into craggy cliffs, like these at the aptly named Point Perpendicular.

A formidable promontory that stands between the calmer waters

of Jervis Bay, and the dangerous underwater rocks of Wreck Bay.

150 years ago, the ships trading up and down this coast

had no lighthouse to guide them.

Imagine being a ship's captain,

edging your way northwards along this coastline,

at night maybe, in a gale, driven before a stiff southerly wind.

You've got to hug the coast because just off the coastline

is the East Australian current, which is pushing against you.

So you're drifting up here, doing your best to stay out of trouble,

but there's no guiding light

to let you know of the existence of this headland.

It's as though geology and the sea had conspired

to make the perfect trap.

Wreck Bay.

Today, two lighthouses grace these headlands.

This one, on the northern Point Perpendicular, is operational.

The other, on the southern Cape St George's headland, is defunct.

When it first lit up in 1860,

it was described in the local Illawarra Mercury, as:

"It will provide an unerring guide to a haven of rest

"and safety in the bay adjoining."

"Unerring guide."

Except there was one thing wrong, and it led to dreadful tragedy.

The lighthouse was built in the wrong place.

Instead of saving lives,

it lured ships into the very place the crews were trying to avoid.

Wreck Bay.

Over a dozen ships were either stranded on the beach,

or smashed to pieces on the rocks before the colonial bureaucracy

finally fessed up to its fatal error.

How could they have got it so wrong?

Local historian Bridget Sant is the expert on this incredible story.

-Quite a ruin you've got here.

-Isn't it grand?

-Let's go in.

-OK.

-Bridget, this is the sorriest lighthouse I've seen.

-It sure is.

-How did it come to this?

-It was built in the wrong place.

They should have built it on the northern headland,

but they didn't, they built it on the southern headland.

They did it very quickly,

they had a conference in Melbourne in 1857,

when 14 out of 18 captains said Cape St George is where they wanted it,

on the southern headland.

Given that those, you'd imagine, would be the very people

that you'd think had the wisdom and experience

to properly site a lighthouse, how did so many of them get it wrong?

They were concerned about Wreck Bay, which is the area to the south,

where there had been several wrecks in the previous few years.

They thought that the southern headland would protect mariners

from getting wrecked in Wreck Bay.

Why was that wrong?

Because the shape of the headland

means that this spot is not visible from Wreck Bay.

It's too far around the corner, as it were.

The New South Wales Pilots' Board,

responsible for deciding where lighthouses get placed,

questioned the Melbourne decision.

They preferred the Northern headland at Point Perpendicular.

But their concerns were ignored by colonial architect Alexander Dawson.

On a whistle-stop recce to the Cape St George's headland, Dawson

identified two sites, Point S and Point T as suitable places to build.

This is a copy of the actual drawings

that were presented to the builders

to enable them to find where they were meant to build the lighthouse.

It's so vague, is it any wonder, when you look at that,

that the lighthouse came to be built in precisely the wrong place?

Dawson decided on Point S,

even though it was closer to Wreck Bay, and lower than Point T.

Probably because it was easier to access,

and would cost £1,600 less to build.

And so it was agreed that it should be on Point S,

but nobody came down to survey the exact spot,

so when the builders came out to build it,

they did not know where to put it.

And, so, they built it in the wrong spot.

Worried that the lighthouse could not be seen from the sea,

members of the New South Wales Pilots' Board

wrote a letter of objection, but they were overruled by the chairman.

The way you recount the tale,

it sounds very much like a case of ego and stubborn pig-headedness.

Absolutely.

They weren't going to blot their copybook by admitting errors.

The Pilot Board tried again,

insisting the lighthouse was dangerous and should not be lit.

But bureaucratic bombast prevailed, with one concession.

It was agreed that it should be lit as a temporary measure.

That temporary period was 39 years.

It was to be 39 years of mayhem as the temporary light

of the St George's Lighthouse lured many trusting ships to their doom.

The tragic ironies of this place keep stacking up.

Even after the lighthouse was decommissioned,

it was still a problem.

A new one had been built at Point Perpendicular,

but this great blonde sandstone tower with mirrors at the top

was still a hazard to shipping because it reflected sunlight,

so the decision was taken to destroy it.

For that reason, Australian warships were given the go-ahead

to blow it to smithereens, which they duly did,

and it's only now, years after all of that tragedy,

that the site rests in peace under a preservation order.

Travelling north-west from Point Perpendicular

brings you to the sheltered waters of Jervis Bay,

where Professor Tim Flannery is following a seaweed trail

to a ground-breaking medical discovery.

Australia's well known as a desert continent.

But, what's less appreciated,

is that it's surrounded by a desert sea.

There's no great rivers or currents to bring nutrients to these waters,

so they're among the least productive on the planet.

And therein lies a great enigma.

Although there's not a lot of productivity here,

there is tremendous diversity,

and among the most diverse groups here are the seaweeds.

Four times the size of Sydney Harbour,

Jervis Bay has numerous small coves and beaches.

This one, Callala Bay, is home to some very special macro algae,

seaweeds with protective mechanisms

that have kept them alive for half a billion years.

Dr Pia Winberg has spent her career investigating the slimy gel

that gives seaweed such strong defences.

Pia, what have you got there?

I've got a great harvest of all kinds of seaweed.

The huge diversity that we've got here in Jervis Bay is amazing.

That's a typical green seaweed called codium.

You can feel, it's full of these gels that protect the seaweed.

-Very velvety.

-This is brown seaweed.

-It's a unique and native Australian seaweed, Neptune's Necklace.

-Yes.

What role do these great diversity of seaweeds play in the ocean?

Well, they're the base of the food chain, so seaweeds are an algae.

Lots of algae cells stuck together in different shapes and sizes.

They create things like the omega-3 that goes up the food chain.

-They're the source of the omega-3.

-Is that right?

So the pills that I get, the fish oil tablets, that omega-3

ultimately comes from algae like this and not from the fish?

Yes. It started in the seaweed and the fish are just accumulating it.

For the past 15 years,

Pia has been at the forefront of researching previously unknown

health benefits hidden inside Australian seaweed gels.

I guess the process starts here.

I see we've got some seaweeds that we picked up this morning.

That's right. You can see the diversity here on the table.

Those seaweeds have evolved here in Australia for so long

that they're unique, and it means that the gels and components

in those seaweeds are just as unique,

and we're here exploring those.

The gels that protect seaweed cells

are similar to cellular substances in human tissue.

Extracting the gel from seaweed

requires a complex laboratory process.

Pia's looking to harness the incredibly robust

anti-inflammatory and immunity boosting properties of seaweed gel.

It can be used on skin as a protective barrier.

It has been shown in studies to reduce tumour growth

and proliferation.

If we put those gels into the human digestive system,

they can become a barrier to block the enzymes

from bacteria that would break down sugars very quickly in our body

and, in that way, it's a property of managing and preventing diabetes.

If Pia succeeds,

she'd have a breakthrough that could revolutionise modern medicine.

So, what are we seeing here?

Here you can see some human defence cells,

cells that we normally have in our body

defending us against bacteria and viruses.

We have stressed these cells out with an inflammatory ingredient.

But some of the cells have a seaweed gel in them -

that's these on the right, and some don't.

You can see how much better the ones with the seaweed gels survive

the inflammation stresses than the ones without seaweed gels.

The research is especially exciting when it comes to stem cells.

Those versatile cells capable of developing into many different

types of human tissue.

When you place stem cells into the different types of seaweed gels,

these gels can actually direct how a stem cell might develop.

Say, for example, into bone tissue, or into muscle tissue,

or nerve tissue.

So, really, everything from someone who's massively burned and needs

to regrow their skin, through to saving eyesight,

through to better gut health,

this little seaweed is unlocking the secret to all of that?

Yes, keeping the cells alive so we can repair ourselves.

That is amazing.

At the end of the day, you'd have to think the world is a better place

for having people like Dr Pia Winberg.

People who take something utterly ordinary, like this,

and turn it into something extraordinary.

I, for one, at least, will never think of seaweed the same way again.

The tranquil fishing village of Eden

lies at the southern edge of the Sapphire Coast.

100 years ago, this sleepy township witnessed an astonishing history.

One, if it is to believed, that's unique in the world.

I've come down here to Twofold Bay in search of a wonderful story.

It's about cooperation.

In fact, it sounds more like comradeship

between pods of killer whales and the whaling community of Eden.

They've been telling it around here for 80 years and more,

and I really, really hope it's more than just a folktale.

European whaling began in Eden back in 1828.

The village was perfectly situated.

Twofold Bay is on the whales' annual migration route.

But the area had another

literally killer asset.

Twofold Bay was home to three pods of orcas,

killer whales that regularly preyed on other whale species.

And diaries, accounts, and photographs

from the time describe the indescribable.

These killer whales working in harmony with men,

communicating with one another

as they hunted giant baleen whales - together.

Now, there were three pods, or groups,

of killer whales that hunted in the Eden area,

and the most famous of all the orcas

was the one they called

"Old Tom" - a seven-metre long

killing machine accustomed to

consuming 50 kilos of meat a day.

Now, that's not him,

but it is a very convincing replica that we've borrowed,

and it gives you a real spine-tingling sense

of what the nature of the beast really was.

Greg McKee is one of Australia's top animatronics artists.

He made this life-size model of Old Tom for a documentary

about this unique aspect of local whaling history.

What is it, Greg, that you so admire about these animals?

They have these astonishing qualities.

They have a brain six times bigger than a human,

so they're incredibly social, they are faster than a racehorse,

they're more powerful than virtually any other predator on earth.

They co-operated with the humans, the Europeans

and the indigenous people, in this amazing relationship.

But it's the special relationship between Old Tom

and local whaler George Davidson that really sets this story apart.

Greg takes me to meet Martin Davidson, George's great-grandson.

Can you talk me through how a typical hunt would work?

Well, I suppose it's basically a case of,

the orcas are out to sea looking for whales,

and they'd be herding them up the coast, and one of the whales

would come into the bay and physically wake 'em up.

And it wasn't just an accident,

a huge amount of intent was involved.

The whale chase might have been 10km down the coast,

so the bulk of the pod would be hammering at this baleen whale,

and they would assign one or two members of the pod to swim kilometres

- 10, 15km - completely away to the mouth of the river here.

And they would floptail - as the family called it -

and somersault, make a huge racket, and then the Davidsons would get out

in their whale boats and swim out to the orcas,

and pretty well they'd go, "Where are we going, guys?"

And the killer whales would direct them miles out to sea,

they'd eventually kill the whale, then go home again,

and they'd leave the first spoils to the killer whale.

It sounds like a Disney movie,

but studies reveal that killer whales are adaptive hunters,

able to learn new techniques and teach these to their young.

They're known to hit their tails on water to signal other whales,

so it's not inconceivable that they adapted this behaviour to

communicate with the Davidson whalers.

So could they spot your family?

They basically went by the colour of the boats, the boats were

painted green, so they had that heads up

to a certain degree on everybody else.

And the whales had really distinctive personalities as well.

Tom was called "Tom Tug" at one stage, or "Tom the Humourist,"

and sometimes he'd picked up guys who were fishing out in the bay

and tow their dinghy around for fun.

If they were exhibiting that kind of behaviour, it's no wonder they

-thought, "That's not just an animal, that's one of us."

-One of us.

Whale numbers inevitably declined, ending Eden's whaling bonanza.

The pods of killer whales moved away, but Old Tom

still returned, year on year, and was a regular visitor in the bay.

It would be nice to think that Old Tom came back

just to see George Davidson.

And then on the 17th September 1930,

Old Tom's body was spotted floating in the bay.

He was dead, and George was devastated.

What happened next is strangely touching.

George carefully recovered the body and then preserved the skeleton,

and Old Tom will be in Eden forever,

here in the Killer Whale Museum.

The teeth of this larrikin old killer whale provide one last clue

to the truth of the story.

Could a rope have caused these abrasions, like the one

on George Davidson's whaling boat, being towed out to sea by Old Tom.

Believe it or believe it not, it's a fabulous story.

For those who live on the New South Wales south coast,

gale-force winds and wild seas are a fact of life.

On a blustery wet day in Eden, Tim Flannery has come to explore

a maritime mystery linking Australia

to a First World War British secret cargo.

In 1917, the huge freighter The Cumberland sank off this coast.

The Great War was dragging on in Europe,

but she was the first casualty in home waters.

It took everyone by surprise.

A formidable 9,000 tonne steamer,

The Cumberland could move massive cargoes at speed.

In July 1917, she was loaded with supplies critical

to the Allied war effort.

Materials destined for British munitions factories.

For fear of attack, The Cumberland's cargo was kept top-secret,

but as she navigated Cape Howe, heading for Bass Strait,

a sudden explosion blew a hole in her bow and all but sank her.

-Rob, is it?

-G'day, Tim.

-Hello, mate.

-Nice to meet you.

-Good to meet you.

-There's Twofold Bay.

-Beautiful.

'Rob Whiter's family has lived in Eden for nearly 80 years.

'He's well-versed in the story of The Cumberland

'and its special cargo.'

So what was she carrying?

She had on board a huge amount of precious metal ingots

in the form of copper, lead and zinc.

We're told to the order of 300,000 British pounds.

Not chicken feed.

No, no, I guess many millions of dollars in today's...

Absolutely, yeah.

The cause of the explosion was a mystery, and after a makeshift patch-up job,

the crippled British steamer headed to Eden for a full repair.

They got here, somewhere close to Green Cape,

they encountered a terribly strong north-easterly gale,

sea got very rough, and the blanket material

they had underneath the hull to stop the inrush of water started

to get adrift and she started taking on water very quickly.

When she sank, sabotage was suggested.

Prime Minister Billy Hughes announced

a large reward for information about the supposed crime.

INCOMING ARTILLERY

At the time, the Anzac war effort was heavily engaged,

fighting on the Western Front in France.

No-one predicted an attack in faraway Australia.

So it was a shock to discover the explosion was caused

by a German mine cunningly rigged to float five metres below the surface.

The loss of the Cumberland

and its precious cargo was

the first conclusive evidence

that the Germans laid minefields

this far from Europe.

It's somehow fitting to be here on this storm-tossed day,

because it was weather like this that, nearly a century ago,

sent the Cumberland to the bottom.

What's truly amazing for me

is that this southern coast of New South Wales, so far from any

theatre of war, should have seen the loss of so many vessels.

And, of course, because of the value of her cargo,

The Cumberland was destined to become the most famous of them all.

In the 1950s, the British came to Eden to launch

a brave salvage operation.

They reached the wreck, lying deep in 100 metres of water,

the gaping nine-metre hole from the mine still clearly evident.

Blasting it apart,

they recovered almost 2,000 tonnes of the sunken metal.

Is there any chance I could see that ingot?

'It turns out that Rob has a piece of this treasure,

'left to him by his father.'

Well, there you go, Jim, that's the ingot.

That represents the treasure that the Pommies were after

when they came in '52.

Really? And what is it? It look like...is it copper?

It's copper, yes, the grease on there indicates copper.

Well, it was cast nearly 100 years ago, so it's a historic piece.

-Absolutely. Shortly to be placed in Eden Killer Whale Museum.

-Really?

It's very interesting, who actually owns it?

It's already been gifted to the museum.

But, before that, who actually is the owner of the ingot?

-I'm not prepared to go into that, Tim.

-Oh, are you not?

THEY LAUGH

OK. Well, fair enough. So it might or might not be contraband.

Yes.

I could assume that it was given to my dad

-and his brother in lieu of payment for work they did on a boat.

-Right.

So there's no chance that it could be

the property of Her Majesty's Imperial Government then?

-Absolutely not.

-LAUGHING: Right, fair enough, I won't go any further.

And it wouldn't be the first time anyway a piece of

-potential contraband had ended up in a museum.

-No. Or in Eden.

-Right! OK.

Travel south past Disaster Bay to the border of Victoria,

and look offshore,

and you'll see Gabo Island -

a 154-hectare punctuation mark off the corner of the coast.

Notorious for wild storms, record tides as high as 16 metres,

and over 100 shipwrecks.

The Gabo Lighthouse is one of the tallest in Australia,

at 47 metres. It was built in 1858,

out of the distinctive pink granite on the island.

Manned by dedicated lighthouse keepers living in frugal conditions,

it quickly became a vital navigational aid.

Marine biologist Professor Emma Johnston has

a personal connection to this untamed place.

My great-great-grandmother lived on this island, she was

married to the lighthouse keeper, and she gave birth to two children here.

Seeing it now from the sky, so small, isolated, rugged,

exposed...I am in awe at her strength.

I'm not here to uncover my family history,

but rather for a privileged peek into a secret method for growing pearls.

I'm here to meet Gerry and Mary Menke.

The Menkes have worked out how to grow pearls in abalone,

those one-shelled molluscs that live on the sea floor.

Theirs is a unique claim to fame, at least in Australia,

and I'm here to find out why and - if they'll let me - how.

'Gerry and Mary are pioneers.' Hi!

'As Australia's only abalone pearl farmers,

'they've succeeded where others have failed, drawing on

'Gerry's 40 plus years of experience

'diving for these highly-prized univalved molluscs.'

So why is it so difficult to farm pearls in the wild?

For a start, to get good pearls you've got to have rough conditions.

Because the abalone love rough areas,

and that's where they grow the biggest.

Abalone is a kind of sea snail.

Unlike oysters, they move around -

another reason their pearls are difficult to cultivate.

This is the black lip abalone.

It's native to the area, "haliotis rubra,"

and it's the one that the Menkes have chosen to cultivate.

Most commercial abalone are farmed,

but in the inaccessible seas off Gabo Island Gerry's pioneered a technique

of keeping wild-caught abalone in specially designed ocean cages.

And about how long does it take for an abalone pearl to grow?

Year-and-a-half to two years.

You feed 'em regularly, cos they're in a cage now

and can't roam around the seabed.

And the abalone pearls actually look quite different to the oyster pearls.

We're doing it in the wild, where every animal produces

a different colour and pearl and shade.

The variety is enormous.

Until now, pearls found in wild abalone were tiny, whitish

and very, very rare.

By feeding his animals specially blended seaweed,

Gerry's found a way to vary the colours,

and the Menkes wild-farmed pearls are considerably superior.

The Menkes have a very secretive method that's under patent,

and we've promised not to show the entire thing, but they've

very generously agreed to show us

part of the process of inserting the pearl.

'Because abalone molluscs are 90% muscle,

'they're difficult to handle, and must first be anaesthetised.'

So how do you anaesthetise an abalone?

-Oh, with alcohol.

-Of course!

THEY LAUGH

Oh, look at them move, what's happening here?

The alcohol is starting to relax their muscle.

That's when we are able to work on the animals.

But here you can see the one we took out of the cage,

-and there's an example of a pearl in process.

-A green pearl.

You never know what colour is going to come out of it.

-Silver or green or in between.

-It's beautiful.

-Each animal is different.

-And you seeded this pearl?

-Yes, yes.

'Gerry seeds tailored plastic beads under the abalone mantle.

'It will take two years for the mollusc to cover the bead with

'nacre and form a pearl.

'So Gerry tags each shell with the year

'and month of seeding.'

A lot of the techniques has been trial and error.

It's very exciting for a scientist to hear about this

because, essentially, what you've been doing is experimenting

-with these animals.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And working out new techniques.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And now you've achieved something really special.

-Yeah.

'These freshly seeded abalone go back into the ocean

'and in about two years, hopefully, there will be a result -

'one that looks like this.'

That's stunning.

For a marine biologist this is triple value

because it's the product of a lot of research and experimentation.

It's a biological product. It's been grown by an animal

and it shines with all of the colours of the ocean.

-That's the major profit for us.

-I might have to take one home.

THEY LAUGH

'Boxing Day in Australia marks the start of the annual

'Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

'But, in 1998, the world famous race was disrupted

'by a monster storm that brought calamity and heartbreak.

'Dr Alice Garner is in Eden, the town that became the hub

'of the rescue effort.'

The Sydney to Hobart has nurtured a world-wide reputation

for being tough. But when that intersected

with a once in a lifetime weather bomb,

it turned into something altogether different.

It became Australia's largest ever peacetime rescue operation

and a humbling reminder of the power and unpredictability of the ocean.

'In 1945, the first Sydney to Hobart race

'saw nine starters attempt the 1,163 kilometre course

'that would take them across Bass Strait,

'the most treacherous stretch of water in Australia.

'Despite the danger, by 1998, the field had swelled to 115 teams,

'from all over the world.'

-RADIO:

-Warning...

There is a storm warning...

'But no-one predicted just how bad things would get

'on that ill-fated Boxing Day.'

-RADIO:

-Mayday, mayday, mayday.

We are getting life rafts on deck.

'Dr Roger Badham is a marine meteorologist and consultant

'to major yacht races.

'But even 30 years' experience couldn't prepare him

'for the fury of this storm.'

Clouds, where were you when the '98 Sydney to Hobart kicked off?

I was at the Yacht Club running around, doing briefings

to all different yachts and everyone knew that a low pressure

was going to develop but not to the intensity or complexity

that actually unfolded.

The new run of computer models had just become available

and instead of a broad low pressure system,

somewhere to the east of Tasmania,

here was an intense little low pressure system in Bass Strait,

heading pretty much for where the front end of the yachts,

the front end of the fleet, were going to be.

It just got worse and worse.

'At the edge of the volatile Bass Strait,

'warm air coming down from the north,

'combined explosively with this intense low pressure system,

'creating what is known as a weather bomb.

'The shallow seabed of the Strait then catapulted this mega storm

'directly into the path of the racing fleet.'

'160kph winds with gusts nearly to 200kph.

'When it got to the corner of Gabo Island,

'it hit the current coming the other way

'and what was a seven to ten-metre, or 11-metre waves,'

doubled in height, so you had 14 and 16-metre waves.

'Eden is a harbour where struggling yachts often retire from the race.

'But in 1998 it became the front line of the enormous rescue effort.'

-REPORTER:

-One by one, they pulled out of the race,

all thankful to escape with their lives.

'When the storm hit, the 83-foot trawler, Moira Elizabeth,

'was returning to Eden.

'Owner and captain Tom Bibby had sought refuge at Gabo Island,

'when he got a call to rescue 17 stricken sailors

'on the yacht Team Jaguar.'

At that stage, it was very, very bad weather.

I couldn't order my crew to go and do it,

so we actually had a discussion and I gave them the option -

yes/no, do you want to go?

Of course they just said yes,

because you don't like leaving people out there.

If you can do something about it, you do.

How anxious were you about going to do this rescue?

There was always that anxious moment.

Like, here comes a big wave, here comes a bigger one,

here comes an even bigger one!

It's just phenomenal.

We were trying to travel as fast as we could to get to these people,

who we thought were in danger.

So we were probably taking a lot more risk

-with the boat on that night than we do normally.

-Mmm.

I'm standing on the foredeck of the Moira Elizabeth,

about three metres above sea level.

On that night the waves were coming up over the bow

and up over the wheel house.

Tom and the crew describe seeing nothing except water.

In fact, they said it was a bit like going down a mine.

VOICES OF THE CREW

Well, we'd got a position on them.

They could see us because we had big flood lights and everything else

and it was lit up like a Christmas tree.

We came up across them and tried to get a line across them.

We actually fell off...

The whole boat fell off the side of one of these waves,

which was about 30 foot high

and free fell through the water

and hit the wave and then it just came over the top of us.

It was like being in a submarine.

Just drive it out, get it back up and then we postponed

getting a line across and just waited till daylight.

Then we took them under tow

and we towed them into Eden.

'In total, five vessels sank.

'66 were forced to seek refuge in Eden.

'55 sailors were rescued.

'And six lost their lives.'

'Were it not for the courage and seamanship of Tom and his crew,

'the death toll would have been far higher.

'On a day when one of the world's most notorious yacht races,

'turned into a race for survival.'

'Charming coves are just one attraction

'of the New South Wales south coast.

'Completely free of high-rise buildings,

'the 400-kilometre stretch

'between Shoalhaven and Gabo Island

'connects directly to another Australian tradition.

'Brendan Moar has come to explore a 95-year-old love affair

'with the fibro beach house.'

When I was growing up, every summer like clockwork,

my family and I would pack the car and head to the same beach

and the same town and we would pitch our tent in exactly the same spot

and I loved it.

As I wandered about that town, there was

something that captured my imagination,

and it seemed like a step up from our tent,

and I always imagined what it would be like to stay there.

They were fibro beach shacks, just like these ones.

'Bounded by 14 sandy beaches,

'the coastal village of Currarong has a unique claim to fame.

'It's built almost entirely out of holiday homes.'

-G'day, Ian.

-Hi, Ben, nice to see you.

-Good to see you.

'Ian Hoskins is a coastal historian with a love of beach house culture.'

You know, Ian, standing here,

this seems to me like the perfect Australian scene -

the cottage on the beach.

It feels like it was always like this.

Well, Australians certainly define themselves today

as a beach-going people,

Sun-bronzed Aussies and all the rest,

but that's quite a recent development,

it's a 20th century slow development.

In the late 19th century, there would be very few cottages

on the New South Wales coast

with absolute water frontage like this one here.

Because through the 19th century, the identity that was developing

was very much one that focused on the bush and the interior.

We were people who grew sheep and wheat, and dug gold and coal.

You know, that was the identity that developed.

So what drove that change from inland to coastal?

There was a change in attitude.

There was a revolution, almost,

at the beginning of the 20th century where we discovered surf bathing.

We fell in love with the sea.

Alongside that, you had to have the time to go and enjoy the coast.

Access was very important.

Roads, cars, after the Second World War, particularly.

You had people heading from the towns inland

directly across to the south coast and just building little houses,

little shacks, where they could, on the small beaches.

'The double whammy of the Great Depression

'and Second World War forced beach holidays to take a back seat.

'But with the end of the war came enormous social change,

'including the 40-hour working week.

'A reform that effectively created the weekend as we know it.'

So this is pretty original.

'The humble beach shack now had new status. It became the weekender.'

So in their time were these houses ever considered fancy?

The traditional fibro holiday house would never have been fancy.

You would have been very lucky to own a second property,

let alone a first property,

even in those couple of decades after the Second World War.

It would almost necessarily, unless you were quite wealthy,

have been a modest dwelling. Fibro fits the bill there.

It's a vernacular expression of our relationship with the coast.

They have a design integrity based on their simplicity,

based on the materials that were used

because fibro was an easy material to use, easy material to bring in.

It's lightweight, it's durable, it's practical

and I love seeing it still exist.

Currarong, like so many of the little villages dotted along the south

coast has total postcard appeal.

A lot of that comes through the preservation of the built

environment just as it is.

So much so that that means any building from here south to the

Victorian border, there is nothing over three stories.

That means nothing taller than the trees - sounds perfect to me.

'Stretching north from the Shoalhaven delta,

'the expanse of Seven Mile Beach slopes gently to the sea.

'Its hard, compact sand, long,

'an irresistible draw card to those with the need for speed.'

In the 1920s and '30s,

this was one of the most famous beaches in the whole of Australia.

It was the great age of speed and Seven Mile Beach, with its long,

straight stretch of hard-packed sand,

was the best natural beach track for car racing in the entire country.

Nowadays, it's a national park

but, just for the day, we have been allowed to wind back the clock.

It's like being in an old aircraft, than being in a car.

More like flying.

'Before December 1929,

'the Australian speed record was a ripping 107mph.

'It was held by an engineer, Don Harkness, who teamed up with

'a driver known as Wizard Smith for his magical powers behind the wheel.'

I'm waiting in a few moments to attempt to break

a world land speed record and I feel very confident of success.

Cheerio.

Don Harkness and Wizard Smith brought their home-made car,

the Anzac, down here.

In those days, attempts on the speed record often ended in the cemetery.

You look at this place

and you have to think they must have been a bit mad.

You take a look at their car, and you know they were mad.

'For a record breaker, the Anzac was a DIY deathtrap.

'A V12 Rolls-Royce airplane engine,

'bolted into a huge Cadillac chassis.

'On the first attempt, the Anzac hit a bump in the sand

'and took off, becoming airborne.

'Clambering out, a shaken Wizard called it a day.

'But the very next day, with Don by his side,

'the Wizard had another go and hit a new record

'of 128mph.'

'Speed had become a social currency and the speedsters

'and their cars - stars.'

The thing that's good about this car...

'Tim Shellshear is the proud owner of this grand Crossley Mercedes.

'Originally owned by one Mrs JAS Jones who, at 43 years old,

'became Australia's Queen of Speed

'when she decided to use the family Crossley as a race car.'

Mrs Jones put herself in as driver.

Now, the organisers promptly banned her because she was a woman.

That led to a significant uprising within women and they reversed

their edict and she was allowed to drive and, in fact, did very well.

The Sydney Morning Herald said at the end of it

she drove as well as many of the men in the Commonwealth.

All right. Praise indeed at that time.

An extraordinary woman, in fact.

'Kent Patrick's bright blue '37 Bugatti has been

'restored from components of a famous 1929 37A Bugatti that also

'raced on this beach.'

On a good day, what is this car capable of?

About 200km an hour.

120mph.

-What does that feel like?

-Terrifying!

Absolutely terrifying.

'For the first time in 80 years,

'these glorious old cars are back on the beach that made them famous.'

This is the era of motoring that a chap has to dress properly for.

Hence the leather coat - but wait until you see this.

Here's the piece de resistance -

flying helmet and goggles.

Toot-toot!

Permission to come aboard.

As you say, this was really just designed to race.

130mph is definitely terrifying.

I'm acutely aware of how many things there are to impale

-yourself on, if anything was to go wrong.

-Yes.

'After the teeth rattling speed of the Bugatti, I'm looking

'forward to the grace of the Crossley.'

This car is a bona fide piece of coastal motoring history.

You've only got to see it.

You've only got to sit inside it to understand why people get completely

consumed by owning them and, more particularly, by driving them.

There is something undeniably special about historic cars.

What is it that never goes out of fashion?

I'll tell you.

It's style.

I have to say that for myself I feel like Toad of Toad Hall!

Next time...

In the Pilbara,

palaeontologist Tim Flannery enters a hot zone from the Cold War.

We're getting a significant reading off the Geiger counter.

That's in the red zone.

We join an elite team of welders who practise their alchemy underwater.

It's pretty treacherous.

And I help to park an ocean giant.

-A metre?

-Yeah.

-Between the bottom of this monster and the seabed?

-Yes.