Kiama Blowhole

About this place

The Kiama Blowhole is an opening in the coastal rock of the town of Kiama in New South Wales, on a headland less than a kilometre from the town centre and about 27 km in a straight line south of Wollongong. The name Kiama has long been translated as «where the sea makes a noise», and the blowhole, one of the town's main attractions, draws about 900,000 visitors a year. It formed from basalt lava flows about 260 million years ago, was first known to local Aboriginal people, who called it Khanterinte, and was first written about by the explorer George Bass on 6 December 1797. Water shoots out because of pressure that builds in an underground chamber at the end of a rock tunnel: as waves fill the chamber the pressure rises, and when they subside it pushes the water up through the hole. Under certain sea conditions the blowhole can spray about 50 litres of water up to 25 m into the air, drenching anyone standing nearby. Two kilometres to the south is the «Little Blowhole», narrower and more reliable, which can be just as spectacular in the right swell, and the white Kiama lighthouse stands on the headland above. Visiting is free. The blowhole is strongest when the swell comes from the south-east; stay behind the fences and keep away from the rock edge, as sudden waves are very dangerous here.