Pambula, New South Wales

Pambula is a town in Bega Valley Shire on the far south coast of New South Wales, Australia 473km south of Sydney via the Princes Highway. At the, Pambula had a population of 970 people.HistoryThe area was populated by the Thaua Aboriginal people, with shell middens dating back 3000 years. The name Pambula is derived from its Dharwa name, pronounced "panboola", meaning 'twin waters'. In 1797, the European voyager George Bass explored the area.Pambula is a historic village with its first European settlers thought to have been the Imlay brothers who established cattle runs on the Pambula River flats in the 1830s. The village of Pambula situated on the flats near the river was planned in 1843 by surveyor Townsend and the first school and churches were built there, but frequent flooding led to the village being relocated to its present site on higher ground.Captain John Lloyd, RN, acquired land in 1844 with his severance pay when he left the Royal Navy, and built The Grange on the hill near the river. At about that time he invited the family of Syms Covington to move there. Covington had joined the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle as a fiddler and cabin boy. He became an assistant and manservant to Charles Darwin during the voyage and for a few years afterwards before emigrating to Australia. In 1854 he became Postmaster of Pambula, and managed an inn called the Forest Oak Inn which still stands at a bend on the coast road.