A community in Sydney’s south is in a race against the clock to preserve their unique way of lie associated with the Royal National Park’s coastal cabins. The structures were established in the 1930’s and built from salvaged material, but the shake licenses are set to expire in 2-years, meaning these abodes could be destroyed as national parks aim to reclaim the land. Now a third-generation shack caretaker is hopeful her child will be able to grow up around the cabins like she did.
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00:00The shack community in the Royal National Park is so unique in the world, there's nothing
00:08quite like it that exists.
00:11It's not just the shacks that are unique, it's the community.
00:14We keep those values that used to exist dating back to the Great Depression, so we're still
00:19doing similar things that they used to do and that's what's really special is the community
00:25is so unique.
00:26No one quite knows what they're going to experience when they come to visit.
00:31I started coming down to Eira at a similar age to what Brooks is now.
00:37I came down with mum and dad on a similar backpack.
00:40This is Brooks' third trip down.
00:43We come down mostly on weekends when we've got patrols or vents on down here.
00:49The shacks are heritage listed and we have a licence until 2027.
00:54It's the shacks that remain, we are just caretakers and we're working really hard with
00:59National Parks to try and renew that licence.
01:01Hopefully in the next few years we can come to an agreement on what that licence looks
01:06like.
01:07It's really tricky because we can't just replicate another licence from a shack community, we
01:12have to build it together.
01:15Growing up with all my girlfriends and guy friends down here has been fantastic.
01:22We're still close to this day and I hope our kids grow up together.
01:25A big part of it was the surf club.
01:28We all shared this interest in the ocean and also just giving back to the community and
01:35the lands.
01:36We're all now a part of the surf club or the protection league and we're often stepping
01:40up into these positions where we're helping the community out and we all just have the
01:45same values.
01:46They appreciate just the simple things in life.
01:49It's so unique down here in the fact that we're not in a suburban area, there's not
01:53emergency services at the flick of your fingers so having the surf club down here and having
01:58patrolling members on public holidays and weekends is fantastic because the amount of
02:04public that we get to in here that do come and have a swim, as soon as they see those
02:07red and yellow flags they know that they're safe and that they can go in the water and
02:13not have that anxiety of the possibility of getting taken out to sea in a rip.
02:17I would love my little fella Brooks to do nippers down here.
02:20My wife Rachel, her father and mother actually started the nippers group down here, which
02:26I think was probably about 30 years ago.
02:28So that's rich in history for us.
02:30The community is part of the surf club and the surf club is part of the community.
02:34They go hand in hand and it is volunteer so if there were no shacks down here there would
02:38not be a surf club, it's just plain and simple.
02:41To walk down here takes an hour, to walk back up takes an hour.
02:44It's a big effort to get down, come on patrol, unpack everything, pack it back up, put it
02:50all away.
02:51So the fact that you can come down and do that, spend a weekend at the shark with your
02:54family, it just makes it so much more enjoyable.
03:00I hope Brooks comes down and he is raised exactly how I have been.
03:06Just having a love for the ocean and the environment and how precious it is.