Summer Holidays at The Basin in the 1950s and 1960s

The Londons and many other families rented the little one-room cabins to spend their summer holidays in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Cabins were furnished with a big dining table, benches and double bunks. Canvas camp stretchers were added for parents and extra kids and a tiny kitchenette, with kerosene stove. There was a communal toilet and shower block.

The children swam, fished, pumped at low tide for yabbies, played ball games and lay around in the sun. A few families had dinghies and everyone had a yabby pump for bait.

A little kiosk sold ice-creams and soft drinks but everything else was taken across on the ferry, which also delivered fresh milk and bread every morning.

Some erected tents alongside the cabins. When the cabins were demolished in the late 1960s, the Basin became camping only.

Currawong then became the favourite spot to rent cabins.