Nothing ever happens in this coastal Aussie town. It’s my idea of heaven

January 15, 2026 — 5:00am

It’s the first thing we do after we unpack the car and drop our bags: We head down the steep driveway from our humble 1960s rental towards the road that leads to the water. Our holiday doesn’t really begin until we lay eyes on the Pambula River, kick off our shoes and wade into the shallows.

Pambula is a name derived from the Thaua word Pamboola, meaning twin waters. As well as the small community at Pambula Beach, it gives its name to the historic Pambula village, South Pambula, Pambula Lake, and the river, which winds its way from the highlands near Lochiel to the Tasman Sea on the south coast of New South Wales. Close to the rivermouth, the Thaua’s ancient middens line the banks, a record of the more than 3500 years people have sat under the trees and feasted on local oysters by its cool, clear aqua waters. I’m just one more.

Bordered to the south by the northern section of the Beowa National Park, on the northern bank of the river low-rise housing clings to the steep headland overlooking the ocean. The tiny Pambula Beach community has the best of both worlds: calm shallows and shade by the riverbank, surf breaks off Jiguma Beach, and the wide sweep of Merimbula Bay, where super-fit and tanned teenage lifesavers, who’ve grown up living metres from the beach, patrol throughout summer.

Looking back from the surf beach, the scene is just as I remember it. Or think I remember it. On my first holiday at Pambula Beach I was still a baby, not yet a year old. We were there, as we would be for every summer holiday at campgrounds up and down the south coast, with extended family and friends, often more than 20 children in our group. A number too big to keep track of, we were guaranteed freedom. As long as we never swam alone and turned up for dinner, we could do whatever we liked.

For all the families we knew then, summer holidays were simple and inexpensive — road trips and national parks, camping with friends. Those first few years at Pambula, I was so young my memories of that time are filtered through family stories, photographs and friends’ home movies, and brief but vivid images: me, naked on the beach, sand between my toes, chasing waves.

When my own children were little I wanted to give them a similar experience. We also headed north from Melbourne to NSW for summer holidays: camping at Pebbly Beach in Murramarang National Park, further north at Boodooree National Park, one year in a house at Manyana. Another year we made a radical change, heading west to Kangaroo Island in South Australia. But these trips always felt like test runs, trying on various holiday personalities until we found the right one. The year we returned to Pambula Beach, we knew we’d found it.

When I stand at the Pambula River Mouth now, the view of the high red cliffs of the Beowa National Park, Severs Beach across the water, and the weathered timber fishing shacks are always reassuringly the same, a sight that’s now part of a loop of memories and images that blur into one other. When I try to picture it in my head, I’m never sure which year I am remembering. The only variable is the weather and our ages. In one image I’m holding my daughters’ small hands in mine, the next they’re taller than I am.

It’s not just the environment that never changes. Our Pambula Beach rituals are now set in stone: pies from Wild Rye bakery, oysters from the lake, a visit to nearby Merimbula to stock up at the second-hand bookshop, followed by a swim and a toastie from the shipping container cafe at Bar Beach. Maybe a morning swim, a walk, another swim, reading a book, then dinner on the deck. We’ve repeated this holiday so many times even the ’roos lolling on the lawns seem to know our routine. That everything revolves around the river and the beach, it is the only holiday rule.

Of course, some things have changed. We miss the local video store which closed its doors a few years back, and we still look out for the fish and chip van that made a brief appearance on the beach one sunset in 2008. Every now and then someone wonders wistfully, “Do you think the van will come back this year?” One year, we even attempted something different — sea kayaking off Merimbula beach. Sure, it was fun, but we never felt the need to do it again. Our holidays were already too full doing, well, mostly nothing at all.

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