Families were hunting for more than Easter eggs at Killalea National Park on Monday, with people gathering bush food, and learning local Aboriginal knowledge.
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With the backdrop of The Farm beach, many families have brought out their picnic rugs to take in the view of the ocean and bush land.
The whole day event of live music and cultural workshops was to celebrate the first anniversary of The Farm Kiosk cafe.
Many spoke about the significance of the area, how it's dear to the community nearly one year on since they rallied to save the space from development.
Richard Campbell, a Yuin man, is leading an ochre ceremony, a queue of young people line up to have ochre painted on their face as he tells the Mercury about the significance of this space to Aboriginal people.
"This is a birthing ground for our people, for our women and it was a teaching ground for our people," the founder of Gumarra, an Illawarra Aboriginal tour group and education company, Mr Campbell said.
Next to us, mats are rolled out for a weaving workshop. Mr Campbell said more people from "all walks of life" are getting involved in learning how to weave and wanting to learn about Aboriginal culture.
"It's giving them something to look forward to, something they can relate to and pass on to the next generation is their culture," he said.
"Culture's coming back and it's coming back like a boomerang, it's coming back strong."
Kilallea Regional Park, 30 minutes south of Wollongong, is an area with middens, quarries, women's birthing trees and a bush tucker trail.
"Our people have been here for over 65,000 years, and this place here to me and to our people is very sacred," Mr Campbell said.
"It's been untouched, undeveloped and we'd rather keep it that way for future generations."
It's an area that less than a year ago a whole community rallied to save, and they won.
One such person is Oak Flats resident Darren Sweet who grew up in the Illawarra.
"We were part of the campaign to save Killalea from Reflections because what they were proposing to do it would have destroyed the place," Mr Sweet said.
The campaign started in 2019 and fought against a proposal that previous operator Reflections Holiday Park would redevelop Killalea Reserve to include a function centre and eco-cabins.
In May 2021 over 600 people paddled out at The Farm in protest .
Mr Sweet comes to Killalea regularly, he said the Gumarra culture tours have changed his view to the area.
"You come out here and you just chill, relax, and with the extra knowledge you learn from Uncle Richard you know to look for more things," Mr Sweet said.
On July 1, 2022 the 260 hectare park land became a regional park managed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service NPWS under the NPWS Act.
Hundreds in the community celebrated the takeover of the area, Mr Sweet said for him the moment proved 'people power'.
"It was like 'Yes, we've done it. Finally'. There was worry there for a while that the Reflections was gonna get it but people power won in the end, people that care," Mr Sweet said.
Shellharbour mayor Chris Homer, who was part of the campaign said since the new ownership by NPWS, the area has been well kept.
"It was the biggest community campaign in Shellharbour's history so it was a great win for the community," Cr Mr Homer said.
"The national surfing reserve, one of the things that it's famous for is the fact that you know you can't see any trace of civilisation, and you can feel like you're gone down the coast somewhere out of the way and it's basically in the middle of the city. So that's why The Farm and the national surfing reserve are so famous."
Mr Homer said in a few months the draft plan of management for Killalea Regional Park will be ready for public consultation.
"Going into the future we just hope that it is up kept to a standard fitting of what people want for a beautiful environmental area, and for an administration that actually really looks after the park in the area for the people and we'll always keep an eye on that anyways but it's really a so far, so good thing, so we're really happy about it."
Marlene Even
Journalist at the Illawarra Mercury. Previously a radio and podcast host at 2SER Radio.
Journalist at the Illawarra Mercury. Previously a radio and podcast host at 2SER Radio.
