Riverbend Paradiso

 

If you love movies, you love "Riverbend Paradiso"! Here you can choose from many hundreds of movies to watch after you have spent a warm and sunny day on the river or inside the "Clubhouse" by the pond on a day which is too hot and too sunny to spend on the river.

We have most of the classic movies (Humphey Bogart, Ingrid Bergmann, Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood, Katharine Hepburn, etc.), many of the new ones and almost all of the Australian movies (Wake in Fright, The Castle, The Shiralee, Sunday Too Far Away, etc.) as well as many rare and foreign ones, not to mention the many documentaries and travelogues.

So come to "Riverbend Paradiso" and indulge your passion for movies!

What's in a name?

 

A certain Nelligen butcher had a wife by the name of Nell. Apparently, he did away with her and threw the body in the river. From time to time it would float to the surface prompting locals to exclaim, “Here comes Nell again”.

This is NOT the official version of how Nelligen got its name but it's as good as all the others because mystery still surrounds the origins of the town’s name. Colonial government policy at the time was to adopt aboriginal place names where possible. With no indigenous written language, however, European translation of aboriginal locality references was approximate at best.

“Nelligen” may be a corruption of an aboriginal term relating to its locality description, its function, a person, or perhaps of a dreamtime event. In the early years the town and its fresh water creek were spelt at different times: Nellican and Nellikeng.

Why Nelligen? Why not?

 

Some guests ask me why I retired at Nelligen, to which I reply, "Why not?" (I sometimes ask myself why I retired, full-stop, but that's a different story altogether.)

It all started in Canberra while I was still running my small computer consultancy Canberra Computer Accounting Systems and dabbling in tax and accounting work on the side. After I had solved a tax problem for a German friend, Tony Finsterer, for which I refused payment, he insisted that I stay at his weekend cottage at Nelligen.

For several months, I didn't find the time to drive to the coast. When I eventually did I had almost forgotten Tony's offer. Luckily, I didn't blink as I drove across the Nelligen bridge on the way to Batemans Bay and so spotted this tiny village nestled alongside the Clyde River.

I ask for directions to Tony's cottage at the General Store and was shown to # 21 Sproxton Lane across the river. (Tony has since died and his cottage has changed hands twice and is again for sale.)

The cottage was locked and Tony in Canberra. I phoned him and was told to look for the keys under the watertank and to make myself at home. Which I did and which set me on my own quest to find a little place in Nelligen.

At the time, Nelligen was a place forgotten even by real estate agents and nothing was for sale except a few empty building blocks. One such block overlooked the Clyde River from its location in Nelligen Place. I could imagine sitting there on the verandah and taking in the views. Which is exactly what a chap was doing just two blocks away. I walked up and asked if I could join him.

Soon we were not only sharing the same views but also memories of people and places we both had known as "Sandy" Sandilands and his wife Betty had also lived and worked on Thursday Island and in Rabaul in New Guinea. I felt at home at once! A few weeks later I was the proud owner of a block of land in Nelligen Place!

I wanted to build a beautiful little Classic Country Cottage. However, a retired public servant who occupied a small log cabin next to me did what public servants do: be a pain in the coccyx ! He objected to my building plans - TWICE! - on some obscure grounds. This delayed me long enough to find a much better place across the river. And that's how I came to buy "Riverbend"!

"Riverbend" had been auctioned in August 1992. I went to the auction as a spectator knowing that the reserve price was outside my range. It must have been outside everybody else's as well because it didn't sell. More than a year later, in November 1993, the owners accepted my much-reduced offer. The rest, as they say, is history!

(Oh, and I did go back to thank the public servant for objecting to my plans so that I could buy this much better and bigger and waterfront property. Last time I looked his mouth was still open!)

 

Take a trip on the Clyde

Random shots of Batemans Bay by Random Aussies

 

If this puts you off staying at Batemans Bay, we can always put you up at "Riverbend Cottage"! ☺

 

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

 

Whether you've read Nietzsche or not, you may still want to join us to walk the road less travelled - Runnyford Road - from Nelligen down to the Princess Highway.

It's an easy 22 km on an unsealed but well maintained road which is very scenic as it winds through forest and open grazing land and across an old wooden bridge that rattles and shakes like an old steam train as it spans the little-known Buckenbowra River which flows into the Clyde.

From there it's just another 10 km to the Highway but if 12 km has been enough for you (remember Nietzsche? ☺), Padma can meet us by the bridge and, after some refreshments, drive us in air-conditioned comfort back to "Riverbend Cottage".

A tale with a sting in the tail

 

Burg Thurston works at Batemans Bay's Innes Boatshed which has been a local landmark since 1955. There he made friends with a giant black stingray called "Nobby".

“Over time, the stingray got more confident”, Burg says. “Now I jump in, he shoos the other stingrays off and comes in and glides up my belly.”

"I loved to surf in the mornings and when I started working the morning shift I was often a bit anxious when I knew I was missing the waves. Then I realised, if my mind was always in the surf while I was working, I was going to miss what is right in front of me, which was the stingrays and how beautiful the boatshed was, and how good my job actually was.”

Did you yell 'Encore'? Well then, here it is:

Wherever you are and whatever you do, this film may inspire you to take your focus off what you haven't got and turn it to what's right in front of you.