Pearl Beach is not an events town, and the events it does have are the better for it: one afternoon of opera in the bush, a blues festival you can only reach by boat, a porridge competition, and six months of whales. Here is the year.
Summer: December to February
The busy season, and the Progress Association’s season: the Australia Day Games on the beach are the village institution, and the association runs an art show and, some years, a food and wine festival; its noticeboard and Facebook page carry the dates. Beyond that, it is The village fills, the beach and the rock pool are the whole day, and the house books out months ahead for Christmas and New Year. A pop-up café has run in the old store over the holiday period, and the coffee van is outside the Memorial Hall most mornings. Book early, arrive with the fridge full, and go to the rock pool before nine.
Autumn: March to May
Opera in the Arboretum, one Saturday afternoon in March, is the village’s day of the year: leading Australian singers in the Crommelin Native Arboretum, BYO picnic and chairs, all weather, proceeds to charity, run by the Rotary Club of Woy Woy since 2006. It sells out. Autumn is otherwise the quiet secret: warm water into April, cool clear air, empty sand. Late May, the first whales.
Winter: June to August
Whale season. Humpbacks heading north pass Broken Bay from late May; Warrah Lookout and Green Point are the places to watch, and Palm Beach Ferries runs cruises. Winter westerlies flatten the bay, the walks come into their own, and rates are the lowest of the year. In 2026 the village also hosted Australia’s first porridge championship, the Pearly Spurtle, at the Memorial Hall, with the winner heading to the world championships in Scotland; watch the Progress Association for the next one.
Spring: September to November
Whales coming back south with calves, wildflowers on the ridge to Warrah Lookout, and Patonga Blues Across the Bay, a one-day blues festival at the Broken Bay Sport and Recreation Centre next to Patonga, reachable only by boat, with the ferry from Patonga wharf included in the ticket. The Ettalong markets get their live bands back on Saturday nights, and the water warms up in time for the school holidays.
Every week, all year
- Ettalong Markets: Saturdays, Sundays and public-holiday Mondays, 9am to 4pm, undercover at 189 Ocean View Road, with a cinema in the complex.
- Ettalong Fresh Food Market: Saturdays from 7.30am at the Broken Bay Scout Hall, Picnic Parade. Growers, bread, honey, flowers, coffee, live music.
- The coffee van at the Pearl Beach Memorial Hall, Diamond Road: weekends and holidays.
- Live music at the Boathouse Hotel Patonga on Sunday afternoons.
- Yoga at the Memorial Hall with the locals; check the Progress Association noticeboard for the week’s times.
- Tennis courts in the village, golf at Woy Woy, horse riding in the valleys behind Gosford, surf beaches at Umina and Ocean Beach, and fishing charters out of Ettalong and Woy Woy for a day at sea.
For what to do between events, see things to do. Ready to plan dates? Check availability.
