There's a great reason for visiting Austinmer: the beach. Not surprisingly it is the most popular beach north of Thirroul offering 250-metres of golden sand nestled between two rocky headlands with broad rock platforms dotted with small rock pools full of sea life. The beach is patrolled by surf lifesavers from September to April. There are good changing/shower rooms and toilets and there are ocean pools (one for toddlers) at the southern end. Between the beach and Lawrence Hargrave Drive is a pleasant strip of green grass which is ideal for picnics and barbecues. There's adequate car parking.

Above the northern headland is Glastonbury Gardens, a public park established in 1965. It was the site of a colliery dam which is still visible. It contains stands of mature Phoenix canariensis, Sabal palms, Wild banana trees (strelitzia nicholai) and Norfolk Island pines (Araucaria heterophylla). An amusing and charming side note is that the park has a number of handsome water bowls for dogs hand made out of mosaics of coloured tiles. Each has the name for a specific dog that was the original beneficiary.

It is possible to walk from Austinmer through pleasant semi-tropical rainforest to the top of the Illawarra escarpment, leading to both Bulli Lookout and Sublime Point Lookout. Although it is a challenging walk, the view from the top of the escarpment is spectacular and, if you are fit and healthy, well worth the effort.

Check out http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/nationalparks/parkWalking.aspx?id=N0620. for specific details. Look specifically for "Forest walk to Sublime Point track".

• Prior to European settlement the Illawarra had been occupied by the Dharawal or Tharawal Aboriginal people for at least 20,000 years. They roamed across the narrow coastal plain, ate fish and crustaceans they caught in the rock pools and lived an idyllic life beside the sea.

• In 1770 Captain James Cook sailed up the coast. Cook attempted to land in the Illawarra but was forced to return to his ship because of the heavy surf that was running at the time.

• Shortly after the settlement of Port Jackson in 1788 George Bass and Matthew Flinder, accompanied by their servant William Martin, sailed down the coast in an eight-foot (2.4 m) rowing boat, Tom Thumb, in 1796.

• In 1797 the survivors of the Sydney Cove traversed the area on their walk from the coast of Victoria. The vessel had been beached on the Furneaux Islands in Bass Strait. A boat was launched with seventeen of the crew but it was wrecked at Point Hicks. The survivors started walking north to Port Jackson but only three survived.

• In August 1797 George Bass sought Governor Hunter's permission to take two of the three survivors from the Sydney Cove and return to the Illawarra to investigate the survivor's reports of coal in the area. He set out in Governor Hunter's whaleboat and discovered coal at what is now known as Coalcliff. The journey lasted only eight days.

• In 1821 the first grant of land in the area was made to Cornelius O’Brien. The property ran up the coast from Bulli north to Austinmer.

• A potential landholder, Robert Westmacott, met O'Brien in 1836. He applied for 300 acres of land at present-day Austinmer and convicts were employed to clear the land and a house, named Sidmouth, after his birthplace in Devon, was completed in 1837. The house which survived until the 1920s. In 1846 Westmacott sold to James Hicks and moved to Parramatta.

• Hicks established a farm and an orchard, later he subdivided his property into 40-acre lots to encourage the creation of more farms and orchards. By the 1860s a small rural hamlet had developed and this was known as North Bulli. A school opened in 1867.

• By the 1880s, North Bulli was producing salt and blackberries for the Sydney market. Coal was added when the Illawarra Coal Company established a mine at Austinmer in 1884.

• By 1887 a 260-metre jetty was built for shipping the coal. It was located just north of Austinmer Headland at Fisherman's Beach. That same year the first wheeled vehicle successfully traversed Bulli Pass.

• The jetty was abandoned in the late 1890s. It later partially collapsed then was destroyed by fire in 1915. The coal mine eventually closed in 1895 when local supplies were exhausted.

• The railway line from Clifton to Wollongong was completed in 1887 (Austinmer station was opened on 1 September that year) with the line to Sydney completed in 1888.

• By the early 1900s Austinmer had become a health and holiday resort.

• The telephone and telegraph arrived in 1909 and the local lifesaving club was formed that same year.

• In 1963 the entrance to Austinmer colliery was bricked up.