A PROMINENT Kiama holiday park has celebrated eight decades of operation and family history.
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The East family owned and operated BIG4 Easts Beach Holiday Park are celebrating 80 years in 2015.
One of the largest and oldest such parks in the country, it features more than 550 sites and a range of accommodation.
The park also hosted a Family Fun Fest on Saturday, the owners thanking their family, friends and campers who have supported the park throughout the years.
Before the park became the popular resort it is today, it was a dairy farm; home to the cows and also Thomas and Elizabeth East.
In 1852, Thomas became the first in the area to purchase his own property, then known as ‘Prospect’.
Decades later, visitors began to come over the hill to survey what is now known as Easts Beach.
Eventually men carrying tents on their back were asking if they could set up camp, and Bruce East obliged.
Bruce began to see the commercial value in camping, and soon people were paying 5/- a week or 1/- a night to stay at the park.
William Fuller and his family were among the first campers at Easts Beach in late 1935.
In 2009, Bruce died at the age of 95, marking the end of an era.
Today, the park is run by Leanne (now Williams), Darren and Jennifer (now Drummond), as well as their mother Judith.
When they first came to the park, Leanne and Darren spent four years living in a caravan with their parents.
Like their father Robert before them, Leanne, Darren and Jennifer began helping out on the park from a young age, including doing the milk run, running the ice cream van and later working in the office and grounds.
Managing director Mrs Williams said the family business had nearly always been a key part of her life.
‘‘I’ve grown up in the park, and then obviously we’ve gone off and done our own things for a little while, then come back into the business,’’ she said.
‘‘We’ve lived here, worked here as a kid pretty much for as long as I can remember.
‘‘I’m third generation, my grandfather started the park, but the property itself has been in our family for five generations.’’
Mrs Williams said one of the major changes were far more and improved facilities these days, and the accommodation is ‘‘bigger and more luxurious’’.
She said it was a Kiama landmark.
‘‘But I guess the feel is still the same, it’s still that come together, community type thing,’’ she said.
‘‘We’ve got three generations, and four generations of some families that have been coming here.
‘‘I know of one camper that’s been here every year of his life, every year of his 55 years.
‘‘We’ve got a lot of holiday van owners, so they have a van down here all year-round and then come and stay here, but that’s passed down through generations of their family, so some have been coming for 60, 70 years and still got a van over there that they come down to.
‘‘It’s pretty special.’’