Shellharbour City

Ocean pools, coastal rainforest and a self-guided cultural walk give Shellharbour City a varied character. If you’re planning a holiday with children, you can choose from nature, water, local life and shared discoveries rather than centring your trip on just one activity.

Water and local life in Shellharbour Village

Beverley Whitfield Ocean Pool is a 50-metre saltwater pool at the southern end of the Shellharbour Village waterfront promenade. Its exact location is 19 Hockey Esplanade. The pool offers a specific destination for anyone wanting to include time by the water in their trip. When planning your day, you can make a visit to the pool a focus in its own right; don’t assume a particular duration, conditions or additional facilities.

Shellharbour Village also brings present-day local life together with a historic name: the town was originally called Peterborough. For families who enjoy including local stories in their trip, this name change is an appealing reason to see Shellharbour Village not just as a backdrop for activities, but also as a place with its own past.

Coastal rainforest and culture at Bass Point

Bass Point Reserve covers 72 hectares of protected coastline and rare coastal rainforest. Only a few patches of this type of rainforest remain in the Illawarra region. This puts a distinctive landscape at the heart of the reserve: protected coastline and a rare habitat are part of the same area. If you’re choosing nature experiences for your trip, you can consider this place as a focus in its own right alongside local life in Shellharbour Village.

Visitors can explore cultural history in the reserve on the self-guided Aboriginal Indigenous Cultural Walk. This format lets you fit the walk into your own schedule. The combination of landscape and culture also makes the visit interesting for families who would like to learn about the area’s history as well as enjoy activities on the water.

Bass Point is used for snorkelling and scuba diving. Bushrangers Bay is a protected Aquatic Reserve with a diverse marine life. For your trip planning, these appeal to different interests in the water: Bass Point is associated with snorkelling and scuba diving, while Bushrangers Bay is defined by its protected marine life.

Little discoveries and good food

Little Park in Shellharbour Village has a modern playground. This gives families another option for including a playground visit in their stay. Along with the Ocean Pool, it adds a specific place for play and movement to the nature and cultural experiences; you can weigh up which activities fit into your day according to your family’s interests.

Shellharbour Village also offers a range of dining options: outdoor cafés, award-winning restaurants and iconic fish-and-chip shops. The choices range from a café visit to a restaurant meal or a classic fish-and-chip offering. Boutique shopping also adds to local life. If you enjoy spending part of your trip browsing and dining, you’ll find other points of interest here than on a stay focused on nature or watersports.

Choose the right focus for your holiday rental

When looking for a holiday rental or holiday home in Shellharbour City, it helps to first decide what kind of trip you want. Would you like your holiday to focus mainly on local life, food and the Ocean Pool in Shellharbour Village, or are coastal scenery, cultural history and activities around Bass Point more important? These interests offer a useful guide when choosing the focus of your trip.

If you’d like to explore other places, you can also find Spring Hill, Scarborough, Primbee, Flinders, Berkeley and Windang here.

For the broader travel overview: Wollongong.