Johanna Griggs and Dr Chris Brown in Shellharbour for Better Homes and Gardens. Photo: Seven Network.
Popular home and lifestyle TV show Better Homes and Gardens will showcase Shellharbour as a hidden gem on Australia’s coastal landscape in an upcoming episode set to air on 16 May.
Host Johanna Griggs, who has been with the show for 21 years, visited the region in April with Dr Chris Brown, highlighting its unspoiled coastline, natural beauty, and sense of community.
Johanna said the show visited the Illawarra regularly, with recent visits having focused on Pepper Tree Passive House in Wollongong, a road trip from Wollongong to Berry, and chef Mark Olive’s The Farm Kiosk in Shellharbour.
“The whole story this time around is because we’ve been showcasing areas around Australia that are the hotspots and trying to tap into what is the appeal and what makes it so attractive to people,” Johanna said.
“There wasn’t one of us who came away from that one without going ‘Yep, totally get it’.
“We were all laughing, because the swells were great that day and Dr Chris, who’s a massive surf boy, just spent all day looking out to sea.
“We couldn’t believe there were only six people in the surf.”
She said the Shellharbour community came out in droves to tell them what they loved about the area they called home.
“Everyone just talked about how close you are to everything – you’ve got everything at your doorstep or within an hour and a half or two hours, whether you’re looking at camping in the bush, you’re looking at the beach or you’re looking for amazing food experiences,” she said.
“But the main thing they all talked about was how you still had a sense of community and also that ease of living.
“Not so many angry people and not the traffic Sydney has,” she said, laughing.
Johanna said one of the key parts of the show was focusing on Shell Cove and the marina and how it had been developed to create living opportunities and employment.
“Again, it was like we didn’t have to prompt anyone,” she said.
“Everyone just talked about how proud of the marina and the restaurant scene they were, and we spoke to lots of people who had moved down there that came for a visit and never went back.”
While she admitted she had been to the region many times, she had never visited Shellharbour Marina and was “absolutely gobsmacked” by the scale of it and number of people out enjoying it.
“It is that thing of, ‘If you build it, they will come’ and ‘If you build what they’re looking for, they will use it,’” she said.
They also visited Warilla Beach, taking in the bike and walking tracks, and were shown around by real estate agent and Surf Life Saving member Ben Cohen.
“For Ben to explain the range of what’s available and that you could still get a house that’s only a couple of blocks away from the ocean with a starting point of $850,000 I think will shock people given what close proximity you are to everything,” she said.
“He covered that, through to the prize home prices.”
It was the unspoiled, undeveloped expanses of coastline through to the natural beauty of the bush she was drawn to.
“You cannot fathom, when you see how ridiculously overdeveloped Sydney is, just the sense of space down there,” she said.
Johanna said while she could see the investment going into roads and further housing, the area still had “all those amazing entire expanses of coastline where there’s space, greenery, water and natural beauty”.
Arriving the day prior to filming to catch up with an Illawarra retired cameraman who had worked on the show for 30 years, she said Dr Chris had instead easily done the trip in a day.
“It’s so close to Sydney but you do feel like you’re worlds away,” she said.
“Ben was saying that it doesn’t matter whether you head to the Southern Highlands, to Berry or to Kiama, all these places that are such unique and beautiful attractions and they’re all places individually we’ve done a thousand stories about on the show, but you’re right in the middle of it.”
She said while many approached the crew to chat about their love for the area, in the same breath they would add, “But don’t tell anyone about it”.
“There’s definitely a real pride and I always think that’s a really lovely quality, rather than people rocking up to the camera and telling you the 10 things they hate about where they live,” she said.
Better Homes and Gardens viewers can catch this Shellharbour special on Channel 7 on Friday 16 May at 7 pm.
