Montagu Island – A Wilderness Haven on NSW’s Spectacular Sapphire Coast

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The waters of the Tasman Sea are chilling despite the thick wetsuit I am wearing. The cold October waters imply summer is yet to arrive with its full vigour here in the Southern Hemisphere. Nonetheless, the low temperatures improve visibility underwater.

But the chill is not my biggest concern. Rather, my trepidation is rising from the numerous black-coloured critters zig-zagging all around us like dementors in Azkaban.

However, the critters of the Tasman are way friendlier. They are extremely inquisitive Australian fur seals, counter-inspecting these black wetsuit-clad snorkellers as much as we are trying to get up, close and personal with them.

I was at Montagu Island in NSW’s spectacular Sapphire Coast, also known as Barunguba in the aboriginal language of the local Walbunja people, and I had signed up for a ‘snorkel-with-seals’ adventure. It is one of the very few places in NSW that offers you this amazing opportunity.

Where is Montagu Island?

Unlike other states, New South Wales does not boast many islands. But the handful it has are jewels in their own right. Montagu is NSW’s second largest island after Lord Howe Island.

It is a 5-hour drive south of Sydney, and a 3-hour drive from Canberra along the artistically named Sapphire Coast.

The township of Narooma on the mainland is a balmy coastal village and the hub from which all tours to the island commence.

Snorkel With Seals at Montagu Island

Coming back to the snorkelling experience now – not being much of a hydrophile, I thrash about and struggle at first. But then I look around at a dozen more swimmers who have already befriended the seals and are swimming in tangos.

I get encouraged by the strength of numbers and calm myself down. Perhaps sensing my ease, a seal pup comes tantalisingly close to my mask and then zips off at amazing speed at what can be an aquatic version of the roadrunner.

My curiosity has won over my consternation and I now glide around gracefully as I spot more seals frolicking in these waters. Their streamlined, glistening bodies perfectly balanced with blubber and muscles make them look like epitomes of faunal hydraulics.

Afternoon sunlight enters the water at just the right angles and lights up the theatre dramatically. The dynamic seals, the delighted snorkellers and the dancing seaweed seem spectacularly in sync, in what I would rate as one of my most exciting underwater adventures ever.

I have swum with turtles and eerily gigantic groupers and have snorkelled reefs in kaleidoscopic colours, but there is a very different sense of excitement with seals. When in large numbers as with Montagu Island’s colony, these pinnipeds will move around you like scud missiles.

However, once you have adjusted to this frenzy of excited curiosity, it is a brilliant experience to come close to one and see their black beady eyes, silvery whiskers (used for navigating and hunting) and mermaiden flippers.

Seals With Ears

Back on deck, on our tour boat, as we shed our wetsuits and change back into humans from selkies, our guide explains more about the seals.

We are informed that what we saw were fur seals (with ears) which are different to true seals, which have no ears. They also have flippers that cannot move forward (such as leopard seals and elephant seals).

The Australian and New Zealand fur seals belong to the first category of eared seals and are found in large numbers on the NSW coast. Interestingly, sea lions are different. Though they too are eared seals, they are found in smaller numbers in South and West Australia only.

The other interesting fact I learnt, which is perhaps easier to remember, is that a group of seals is called a Harem.

Well, my take – appellation and speciation apart, the snorkelling was an incredible and indelible experience, that anyone should indulge in to add as an aqueous laurel to their underwater wreath.

Aboriginal Lore and Origin

The formation of Montagu goes back nearly 90 million years to the Cretaceous Period. At that time, Australia was severing its ties to Antarctica at the South Pole and preparing for its long northbound journey.

Montagu Island, a continental island, was then joined to the mainland and formed from the volcanic activity of Gulaga, or Mt. Dromedary, clearly visible along the entire Sapphire Coast.

Gulaga was more than double its current height of 800m and was a fiery volcano creating abundant volcanic cones. The two are extant even today. Barunguba or Montagu Island, being the elder son as Yuin people would tell you, and Najanuka or Little Dromedary, the younger son staying closer to the matron Gulaga after Montagu had drifted off. Nonetheless within proximity to the fiery family.

Today, Gulaga has eroded extensively and the peak visible is only the core of the volcano, while sea levels have risen and swallowed the umbilical land converting a promontory to the island of Montagu.

However, the primordial peak was not without her riches – during the Australian gold rush, over 600kg of gold were collected around Gulaga making it a hub of miners, diggers and panners.

As with many monikers on the eastern coast, Dromedary was named by Captain Cook in 1770 because it reminded him of a dromedary camel’s hump, while the name Montagu was given after the 2nd Earl of Halifax.

It was only recently in 2021 that the dual aboriginal name was officially bestowed to provide a double nomenclature.

A Birdwatcher’s Paradise

The wildlife bonanza at Montagu does not stop with the curious fur seals. Birdlife is abundant here and come spring, Montagu turns into a giant rookery with hundreds of silver terns and shearwaters. The latter migrates all the way from as north as the Bering Sea in Alaska to breed here.

You can find nesting burrows extensively in the northern part of the island, as short-tailed and sooty shearwaters return to the isle of their birth to continue their progeny in their fossorial nests.

Terns and gulls nest in abundance in the safety of the island. In summer, the island erupts in the cacophony of the emerging fledglings. Devoid of humans, it will seem like the breathtaking, isolated backdrop of an Attenborough documentary.

The bonus good news, as conservation is taken up even more seriously in this nature reserve, is that the numbers of these migratory birds have been on the rise in recent years.

Shearwaters aside, raptors such as Australian kestrels, peregrine falcons – the world’s fastest bird, black-shouldered kites, swamp harries and the white-breasted sea-eagle call this island home.

Meanwhile, water birds such as terns, herons, gannets and cormorants are also found in abundance.

The March of the Penguins

The island boasts nearly a hundred species of birds, both denizen and migratory. Yet, as travellers, we seem to have too soft a corner for penguins. Especially the blue-coloured fairy penguins, the world’s smallest, that wade in good numbers every day at sunset.

These weensy waddlers are only found in the southern coastline of Australia and pockets of Tasmania and New Zealand. Phillip Island, near Melbourne, is world famous for its evening time, fairy penguin tours, and only in recent times has Montagu Island opened up with its own shows to admire these little penguins as one more wonder of the island.

The Montagu Island Lighthouse

Nature’s cornucopia is not the only drawcard for Montagu. It also has a charming granite-hewn lighthouse that was erected in 1881 and is functioning even today. It was designed by James Barnet, the colonial architect of New South Wales and also, perhaps, the father of lighthouses of the NSW colony.

In addition to Montague, James was the architect for over a dozen lighthouses in NSW, many of which still stand majestically today.

Sydney’s Macquarie Lighthouse and Palm Beach Lighthouse, along with the ones at Fingal Head-Port Stephens, Crowdy Head, Seal Rocks and Port Macquarie are some of the more iconic of his designs. These all helped develop the Highway of Lights that provides safe passages to ships even today after 150 years.

The lighthouse at Montagu Island has now been automated. However, there is a list of illustrious lighthouse keepers who once called this isolated place home and stayed in aloofness for the greater good of the colony.

When you walk around this island, you can spot the shoreline just 9 km away. Yet, except for a few avian allies, as you walk on your own on the orange, lichen-strewn boulders of the island, you are bound to sink into a sense of solitariness that shrouds this island.

If you imagine how life would have been for those lighthouse keepers, the aloneness will only amplify and make you wonder how much melancholy-laced romanticism they must have endured for over a century.

To further explore that feeling, you can book accommodation at the lighthouse keeper’s cottages – the only lodging available on the island – and delve into the time capsule that is Montagu.

Walking Around Montagu

You can access the island’s beauty only via guided boat trips from Narooma on the mainland. With so much to see and do, every minute will seem like a throbbing experience.

Nonetheless, you will have some time on your own, towards the end of your trip – a short walk around the island is highly recommended. The granite boulders strewn with strikingly fulgurant lichen and interspersed with native vegetation are soothingly peaceful.

Indigo-blue waters of the Tasman Sea provide a strikingly contrasting background and make you wonder if the Sapphire Coast could have been given a better name.

The lighthouse, towering and ubiquitous, standing like a sentinel as the only vestige that humans conquered this island will further add to your solivagant’s stroll as you spot seals, shearwaters, and seaweeds all around the coastline.

If you further wind the clock of time, you can imagine this outpost connected to the mainland during the last ice age, frequented by the aboriginals foraging for eggs and meat in Buranguba’s shadows, all the while paying homage to Gulaga rising in the horizon and crafting their stories of the Dreamtime in her inspiration.

Whale-Watching in Winter

Barunguba will inevitably leave you brooding. The contemplation will only increase as you take your return boat to Narooma and get awed by the sunset colours on the waters.

However, in winter or early spring, it might pay to be a bit more attentive for you will be sailing on Australia’s whaling highway, with a good chance to spot humpback whales.

Ever since hunting these docile creatures came to a halt, their numbers have rebounded in good numbers and today. These whales move along Australia’s eastern coast in thousands – first northwards to the warmer waters closer to Queensland to breed in winter and then southwards with young pups in early spring.

The entire Sapphire Coast lies on this cetacean expressway – the chance of seeing whales on the ride back to Narooma is normally very high. These are mostly humpback whales in pods of a dozen or so. However, occasionally, one also gets to spot the southern right whale and very rarely, even the orcas.

Unwind in Narooma

If you think the excitement is over with Montagu, think again for Narooma – your stopover on the mainland is a jewel on its own.

Lying on the staggeringly beautiful Wagonga Inlet, swirling with shallow sandy turquoise waters, any walk here is bound to leave you rejuvenated.

Look out for stingrays that abound around the inlet – and yes, when hungry, do not forget to gorge on oysters famed throughout the Sapphire Coast.

The Mill Bay Boardwalk, the Australia Rock and the Glasshouse rocks are other must-sees here, and that is just the tip of the Sapphire Coast’s iceberg. Whichever direction you decide to head, there will be other jewels strewn on the coast – Bermagui, Merimbula, Eden to the south, Dalmeny and Potato Point to the north.

All the while, Gulaga’s benevolence will watch over you, as she keeps an eye on the coast, particularly her loved ones, Najanuka and Barunguba.

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Author Bio: Ayan Adak is a consultant by profession who loves traveling, and has been to nearly 30 countries. He likes writing about his travel experiences besides scribbling poetry, short stories and essays.