What is now the Batemans Bay Water Garden was once a popular stopover for drovers and their cattle, but with progress the town grew and the drovers disappeared, and the area became swampland.
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In the late 1970s, Kiama builder Kev Arkinstall went for a walk there and got the idea of transforming it into a town park, with native trees and interlocking ponds and small islands with wildlife on them.
The Batemans Bay Horticultural Society had similar ideas, and in 1989 wrote to council requested that it set up a steering committee.
The council set up an investigation committee and appointed a landscape designer in 1990, and the committee was renamed the Batemans Bay Water Garden Management Committee in 1992.
The committee got $40,000 from Coast Care and $30,000 from the council, and with this, plus the tireless efforts of Batemans Bay Horticultural Society volunteers and work-for-the-dole labour provided by Campbell Page, they were able to plant trees, build the boardwalk and add a gazebo, electric barbecue and playground equipment (none of the last three of these remain).
The Water Garden was officially opened on February 14, 2001 by then Eurobodalla Mayor Chris Vardon.
At the time of the opening, the management committee was councillors Vardon and Allan Brown and Batemans Bay Horticultural Society members Bill Blayden, Robert Rolfe and Grant Miles.
The management committee was then disbanded and management and maintenance was taken over by council.
A volunteer group called Friends of the Eurobodalla was formed later in 2001 and helped the council maintain the gardens by working on and improving the flower gardens and shrubberies.
Former councillor and member of the garden’s management committee and Batemans Bay Horticultural Society, Allan Brown, said the body of water in the garden was a blocked drain from the industrial area at Hughes Street.
“There are pipes under the road in South St opposite the caravan park leading to a debris trap that carry the industrial water runoff,” he said.
“The dirt drain was blocked near the museum to hold the water back, creating the Water Garden’s storage.
“It’s likely there were no bats there in the early 1990s when it was being created, or very few.”
