Cullendulla Creek

Our water quality monitoring program has shown Cullendulla Creek to have good water quality. Find out more about the estuary and its unique features.

Cullendulla Creek is located on the south coast of New South Wales between Durras and Batemans Bay. It is a wave-dominated barrier river estuary with an intermittently open entrance.

The estuary hosts substantial mangrove communities and tidal sand flats, as well as a boardwalk that offers great birdwatching opportunities.

Estuary health and features

Ecology

Water quality

As part of our water quality monitoring program we assess the water quality and ecosystem health of an estuary using a range of relevant indicators. We sample a subset of the estuaries between Wollongong and the Victorian border every 3 years. The most recent sampling in Cullendulla Creek was completed over the 2017–18 summer when 2 sites were sampled on a monthly basis.

This report card represents 2 water quality indicators that we routinely measure: the amount of algae present and water clarity. Low levels of these 2 indicators equate with good water quality.

The report card shows the condition of the estuary was good with:

algae abundance graded good (B)
water clarity graded good (B)
overall estuary health graded good (B).

Find out more about our estuary report cards and what each grade means. Read our sampling, data analysis and reporting protocols and find out how we calculate these grades.

Physical data

Physical characteristics

Estuary type: Barrier river

Entrance location	Latitude (ºS)	–35.7
Entrance location	Longitude (ºE)	150.21
Catchment area (km²)		15.2
Estuary area (km²)		1.3
Estuary volume (ML)		986.1
Average depth (m)		0.9

Notes: km² = square kilometres; m = metres; ML = megalitres.

Water depth and survey data

Bathymetric and coastal topography data for this estuary are available in our data portal.

Land use

The catchment of Cullendulla Creek is moderately disturbed with one third of the land used in urban areas of North Batemans Bay. Over half of the catchment is forest, some of which lies in Murramarang National Park.

Get involved

National and marine parks

Murramarang National Park is the largest conservation area within this catchment. The lower estuary flows throughCullendulla Creek Nature Reserve, located at the mouth of the estuary where it enters Batemans Bay.
This estuary flows into Batemans Marine Park.

Citizen science projects

iNaturalist’s Plants of Eurobodalla is a citizen science project that monitors plants found in the Eurobodalla region.
The South Coast Shorebird Recovery Program provides the opportunity for people to get involved in the protection and recovery of shore birds.
The Budawang Coast Nature Map is an online data platform the community can use to record and identify biodiversity. Data collected is used to map the distribution of native plant and animal species from Moruya up almost to Kiama.

Community involvement

Eurobodalla Landcare is a volunteer network of 24 Landcare groups on the New South Wales south coast.
The Coastwatchers Association is a community environmental and conservation group based on the south coast.

Local government management

Local councils manage estuaries within their area unless the estuary is attached to a marine park.

Eurobodalla Shire Council manage this estuary. This estuary flows into Batemans Marine Park.

Health of our estuaries