The story of this place
Wollongong Harbour is one of the oldest in New South Wales, with its Breakwater Lighthouse — a rare wrought-iron structure — first lit in 1871 to guide coal ships out of Belmore Basin. The basin itself was excavated by convict labour in the 1860s, shipping coal from the Mount Keira mines to Sydney and beyond. In 1881, the clipper Queen of Nations ran aground near the harbour with the loss of four lives, its wreckage still visible in the sand. A second lighthouse, Wollongong Head Lighthouse, was built in 1936 on Flagstaff Hill — making Wollongong one of the few places in Australia with two operating lighthouses. Today, the harbour is a working fishing port and marina, where the convict-built breakwater still stands against the Tasman Sea.