The ABC’s The Making of Australia website is my current interest/obsession. It’s a place to put my anecdotes, like a typical, elderly, retired schoolmaster and immigrant son.
My description of my nostalgia tour has just been approved for inclusion.
My “nostalgia tour” grew out of the first visit by relatives from the Netherlands, in 1974.
My parents and I had “dropped in” on this aunt (mother’s younger sister) and uncle’s place, in December 1969, (being our first time back in Gouda, after migrating in April, 1956) and we were received by a little house full of excited relatives that time.
I had gone back, again during our Sydney summer school holidays, in December 1971.
This uncle-by-marriage loved his annual holidays in Spain and it didn’t take much to convince him that he, Uncle Koen and Aunt Bep, should fly the 27 hours to Sydney, to come and visit us.
The very first drive we took them on was along the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, to Watsons Bay because, at last we could show relatives what we had been writing about in aerograms and talking about on little reel to reel tapes (sometimes augmented with slide shows).

Past the location of the former migrant hostel, in Pozieres Ave, Matraville. Past the location of where we’d shared an old house with the van Hoorns. Down to La Perouse were the boomerangs were for sale and being demonstrated and where in 1956 and 1957 we’d gone to Congwong Beach.
Up past Prince Henry Hospital (where all three of us had been patients). Past Long Bay Gaol, where we’d never been.
Stopping off at Malabar Beach to show them where we’d walked to from the hostel, in those early days to relax on the beach in our new country, unaware of any sewerage outlets nearby and admiring the plants beneath the surface of the water, with new snorkeling gear.
Past Maroubra Bay High School, which was then still there and stopping off at Maroubra Beach which had been our other beach, in those early days.
My father drove through the stop sign, at Coogee Beach, excited about the fact that Oom (Uncle) Koen was videoing the scenery and busily telling him all about the beach.
Eventually buying their first ice creams at the Gap , at Watsons Bay.
Earlier, Tante Bep (Bep is short for Elizabeth) had proudly posed under the sign, at Bondi Beach, at the beginning of Elizabeth Drive.
Later we also walked them around Kings Cross and then my father drove them practically all over New South Wales, to show them HIS country of choice.
The floodgates were opened. From then on almost biannually a set of relatives, all from my mother’s side of the family, except my father’s step brother, dropped in during our summer months.
Particularly in the beginning there was then always a welcoming in my parents’ house (where I am now) by the many Dutch-Australian friends of my parents (Often bringing flowers.) and always a big farewell party at the end.
Usually leaving my parents very satisfied but also exhausted after sharing the house and the small family car for usually about four or five weeks.
In 1996 I found the internet and I started taking that same car trip along the beaches with quite a few complete strangers, whom I invited via the www.
It became such a routine, stopping off at the same places and telling the same stories.
They were always particularly impressed with the view from La Perouse and the story of Captain Cook, as well as the view from the park, at Dover Heights and the glimpse of the harbour, driving down to Watsons Bay.
In 1975, after the first aunt and uncle had made the trip, another of my mother’s sisters, brought her friend. That was HER first vacation with my parents (and me). She did that nine more times.
(Hardly ever left her little house in Gouda, except on her bike to the shops and my other aunts but happy to travel ten times, to her favourite sister, in Sydney.)
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I have video somewhere of the two sisters (My mother and Tante Juul) sitting above Malabar Beach and my mother saying that the questions should be directed to me, because I was a school teacher.

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This information comes from here

Around 1911
Randwick Council was proposing to build dressing-sheds and an enclosed swimming baths for ladies at Long Bay. The beach was popular with adults and children because of its beautifully clean sand and water and because it was believed to be seldom visited by sharks.

1916
An ocean outfall constructed at Malabar carried waste from the Homebush Abattoir and other waste into the ocean. The waste plume attracted sharks and seabirds.

1920s
Randwick Council promoted Long Bay as a ‘nice quiet bathing spot with a splendid reserve for picnics’.

1970s
Sewage from Malabar sustained vast numbers of the now-endangered wandering albatross. People still saw and smelled the sewage plume going all the way out to the horizon. The bay and the rock pool were eventually declared off-limits to bathers due to pollution from the Malabar sewer outfall and the surf club that had patrolled the beach closed down. The historic 150-metre sea pool fell into disrepair.

Late 1970s
The NSW Department of Health requested that Randwick Council erect signs to warn people that the water was polluted from the Malabar sewer outfall.
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POST SCRIPTS:
My mother (with doll) and her sisters. (Four of them visited us in Sydney. One of them 10 times! The three blonde ones and another, not yet born, when this photo was taken.)

(Juul, who came 10 times, is also sitting on a chair, front, left.)
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In the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics, an AVRO (Dutch radio {and t.v.} ) team had found me via the www and I assisted by being one of their earliest contacts when they prepared for- and then came back to do- Drive-time, live programs to the Netherlands, during the week before the opening to provide some colour and background.
Thus the listeners were taken on my nostalgia tour via the microphone of the AVRO reporter who came with me, in my car.