Marina service
Cottage Point Marina (Cottage Point Kiosk & Inn)
About
Cottage Point Marina (Cottage Point Kiosk & Inn) at a glance
Small boating stop in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park at the junction of Cowan and Coal and Candle Creeks: kiosk with BYO lunch, courtesy mooring and pontoon berths for diners at the hatted Cottage Point Inn; water, fuel and pump-out available nearby.
Service area: Broken Bay / Cowan Creek
- Marina type
- small marina & cafe
- Operator
- Cottage Point Kiosk / Cottage Point Inn
- Region
- Broken Bay / Cowan Creek
- Water body
- Cowan Creek
- Berth types
- casual berthing, swing moorings
Facilities and services
- restaurant/cafe
- boat hire
- kayak hire
- bait & tackle
- courtesy mooring (2hr)
- public moorings
- water taxi access
- BYO cafe
- fine dining restaurant
About Cottage Point Marina (Cottage Point Kiosk & Inn)
Cottage Point sits at the meeting of Cowan Creek and Coal and Candle Creek, deep inside Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park about 35 kilometres north of the Sydney CBD, and the so-called marina here is really the waterfront operation of two much-loved institutions: the Cottage Point Kiosk and the Cottage Point Inn. The Kiosk occupies a riverside cottage built around 1918, one of the oldest buildings in the settlement, and over a century it has passed through many families and trades while remaining the place where locals and visiting boaties meet, eat and launch a day on the water. Cottage Point was once reachable only by boat or on foot, and even now a single winding road serves the handful of houses, so the creek still sets the rhythm of the place. The clientele is mixed in a way few Sydney boating spots manage: families hiring a tinny for a morning's fishing, kayakers heading up Coal and Candle Creek, yacht crews swinging on a mooring before a BYO lunch, and well-dressed diners stepping off a water taxi or seaplane for a long table at the hatted Cottage Point Inn next door. The area carries genuine history, from Aboriginal rock art sites through the national park to wartime stories of a Japanese submarine sighted in the creek, and television history too, with Skippy the Bush Kangaroo filmed in the surrounding bush. What makes this stop distinct is precisely that it is not a conventional marina. There are no rows of pens, no travel lift, no chandlery; instead there is a courtesy mooring, a couple of public moorings, a kiosk deck over the water and a national park shoreline on every side.
Marina facilities
Boating services at Cottage Point are modest, informal and geared almost entirely around the visitor arriving by water. The Kiosk provides a single courtesy mooring on a first-come, first-served basis with a two-hour maximum stay, intended for patrons stopping for breakfast, lunch or coffee; the cafe trades from 8.00am to 4.00pm five days a week, closing Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with reservations strongly advised on weekends. Two public moorings sit near the public wharf for those staying longer, and the Kuring-Gai Motor Yacht Club next door to the Inn (phone 02 9456 3538, VHF channel 73) can sometimes offer a casual swing mooring for a fee. Diners booked at the Cottage Point Inn, the fine-dining restaurant on the point, have use of pontoon berths while at the table. There is no fuel, pump-out or mechanical service at Cottage Point itself; the nearest fuel, water and black-water pump-out are up Coal and Candle Creek at d'Albora Akuna Bay, a few kilometres away, with further services at Empire Marina Bobbin Head down Cowan Creek. The Kiosk doubles as the local tackle and boat-hire operation, renting 5-to-8-seater runabouts and one or two-person kayaks daily with no licence required, last hire at 2.00pm, and it can pack food for a day on the water. Fishing supplies, drinks and ice cover the basics. In practical terms Cottage Point works as a refreshment and overnight-mooring stop rather than a service port: crews plan fuel, water and pump-out at the larger marinas on Cowan Creek and treat the point as the place to eat, stretch legs and pick up a mooring in quiet water.
Local sailing knowledge
Approaching Cottage Point is straightforward by Cowan Creek standards. From Broken Bay, Cowan Creek runs south past the entrance to Coal and Candle Creek; Cottage Point lies right at that junction, in deep, well-marked water with no bar and no bridges between the sea and the moorings. Depths alongside the point are generous for the size of boats that visit, and the creek is sheltered in almost all conditions, which is why it fills with cruising yachts on summer weekends. Mooring etiquette matters here: the Kiosk's courtesy mooring is for patrons and limited to two hours, and the public moorings near the wharf are the honest fallback when the point is busy. Skippers should note there are no swing moorings further up Coal and Candle Creek, so late arrivals in peak season sometimes fall back to the public moorings in nearby Smiths Creek and use the water taxi. Ashore, the single access road means parking is limited and the national park entry fee applies to drivers. Wildlife is part of the visit: sea eagles work the creek, goannas patrol the picnic edges, and the surrounding bush is genuine wilderness, with walking tracks to Aboriginal engraving sites. Cruising grounds fan out in three directions: up Cowan Creek to Bobbin Head for the Empire Marina bistro, up Coal and Candle to Akuna Bay and the waterfall walks, or back out to Broken Bay for Pittwater and the Hawkesbury. Local lore adds colour: residents tell of wartime submarine sightings in these very waters. For most visiting crews, though, the essential local knowledge is simple: book the Inn or the Kiosk ahead on weekends, grab the courtesy mooring early, and let the rest of the day drift.