Narooma, New South Wales
Narooma is a town in the Australian state of New South Wales on the far south coast. The town is on the Princes Highway. The name is said to be derived from the Aboriginal word meaning ‘clear blue waters’. At the 2011 census, Narooma had a population of 2,409 people.
Montague Island, a National Parks and Wildlife Reserve, is eight kilometres offshore from Narooma. It is popularly thought that Lieutenant James Cook named the island as he sailed northwards up the coast of New South Wales but this is incorrect. He did name Mount Dromedary, which is located inland from Narooma, but his ship HMS Endeavour was on an easterly tack at the time, which took it far to the east of the island. From this point the island appeared to be a cape which projected from the coastline and this he named Cape Dromedary as it was below the mountain. Later, one of the ships of the Second Fleet in 1790 reported it as an island and the name "Montagu" (after George Montagu Dunk, the Earl of Halifax) was given to the Island though it is not clear by whom. Bass and Flinders later confirmed it as an island in their voyages of discovery in the late 1790s. ("The Lure of Montague" -Laurelle Pacey)
