Our History
This stunning property has been in Tom’s family since the early 1960s, when Tom’s grandparents established a stud short-horn cattle business and earth-moving machinery depot on part of property. In the late 1970s, Tom’s parents took over the timber lease on the adjoining property, and later, they converted this to freehold and bought the timber rights. By doing this, they saved all the forested areas on the property from being removed and turned into paddocks and potential housing development on prized land near the coast. They secured this place as a natural forested landscape, and created a legacy of a large, mostly forested property, so close to Tathra.
In 1981, Tom’s parents – Chris and Bruce – set up ‘Kangarutha Nursery’. They grew this into a very successful and well-loved local business, which they ran for 25 years. It won industry awards for Best Garden Centre in NSW and Australia on multiple occasions. They sold the nursery in 2006, but unfortunately some years after that, it closed permanently.
A local couple then established and ran ‘On the Perch Bird Park’ from 2015. This too was a popular and award-winning business, but they decided to close in 2020.
We then made the decision to take on the business site on the property, and to start to build our own dreams for Kangarutha.
