November/December 2025


standing in my room, eyeing a balcony, neatly equipped with table and chairs. A bottle of wine has been left to greet me, along with brochures about the town and a pocket-sized guide to the weekend’s Jazz and Blues festivities. My en-suite has a touch of class and plentiful space. The bed embraces me. Once outside again, I can see


what a perfect sun-trap Kiama is. It lies facing east on the bowl-like slope of an easy hill. I resolve to wake early the following morning to capture the sunrise, and holding the brochure, figure my way to Cargoes chippy on the jetty. My stomach growls; the irresistible tang of chips, laced with salt, baptised with vinegar, the promise of crispy batter and flakes of fish. I increase my pace. I order a middle-sized battered cod and double portion of chips with mayo, and choose a table close to an angler. “What you catchin’?” I ask. “Catching nothing. Hoping for yellow tail” he grunts. He’s trying to concentrate. Flexing his rod, (his name is Jake, which


I notice written on his van), he attaches fresh bait and casts again. Blazoned across his dirty T-shirt is the face of Sonny Terry, the great blues harmonica player.


American. From


Georgia. “You here for the music?” I ask rather lamely. Ten minutes later we’ve chewed the fat about all the blues greats and fixed to meet up next night at The Surf Club. “Don’t be late. It gets crowded early.“ I must look puzzled. “Local talent,” he says. “Frank Sultana. Already played Memphis.


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FROM SYDNEY ON THE ILLIWARRA LINE | 19


every whoosh there’s a tiny cheer as a spout of spume aims for the sky and the visitors scatter. It’s very famous. It whooshes again. On the chip shop roof a dozen gulls fly off, disgusted by the fuss.


Voice like a blow torch.” Then he falls silent. I tackle lunch and watch Jake prise a silver fish from the end of his line and throw it back. The brochure is fat with festival venues,


30 in all, a storm of music invading the town across three nights, including an early evening session at the restaurant at the Sebel. A short stagger home. That afternoon I walk till my feet hurt,


north to beaches of perfect packed sand, south to the lighthouse above the town’s most prominent rocks. I enjoy a paddle. In the distance, a crowd of tourists is waiting patiently by the Blowhole. At


Kiama is blessed. Blessed by geology, geography, location. By flora and fauna. Its tiny museum recounts the tale of the region’s First Nations, the Wadi Wadi, its current custodians. They were joined in the 1830s by groups of settlers from far off Ulster who founded a dairy industry, cultivating land and opening basalt quarries, supplying the needs of Australia’s suddenly booming urbanisation. The quarries today echo with birdsong; basalt columns still stand, reminiscent of the world famous Giant’s Causeway. With my afternoon almost gone, I


snack at Diggies, a shaded café near the lighthouse. On its veranda, the Neko 4tet, a four-piece from Sydney is grooving sedately. Some middle-agers applaud with decorum, eating scones. I may have dozed. The sky is starry when I arrive that


night at The Grand, a great old pub with bar food, booze and Rowan S. Kaine who is dishing out storytelling blues. The place wears the grain of its chequered past. It fills with good talk and the jazz


of glass. “Here comes Tall Shaun,” yells someone. Shaun’s band picks up the beat. Shaun’s voice is a razor. He compels. The Grand is cheering him as I leave-and the streets around me are a colander leaking music. Those streets lie tight. The venues huddle. The names of the bands are a poem in themselves: The Keepsakes, The Vampires, The Mighty Reapers (soul, blues and funk in a single outfit). For now, Kiama seems in its element. All through Saturday into Sunday it fills with rhythms, riffs, and percussion. Its population must have trebled. Along Terralong and


Street


Manning Street, all day Saturday, happy visitors gorge on ice- cream.


Acts play


on pavements. That night, as Jake said, the Surf Club hooches. Frank Sultana has come


and


gone. The Sydney Blues Society All


Stars are in the ascendant. The crowd is transported. We could be anywhere. Or not. In the world of travel, there is a cliché


that it’s getting there that matters, not so much the destination. Pah! to that. Go to Kiama when the surf is riding high and the coast is sparkling, when the Blowhole puts on a show and the Illiwarra line awaits to take you home— and you’ll beg to differ. Tom Adair was a guest of Tourism Australia (www.australia.com ) and Visit New South Wales (www.visitnsw.com )


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