The town sits on the Princes Highway, and is connected by road to Moruya, Narooma, Nerrigundah, Eurobodalla and Potato Point.

The Yuin people are considered to be the traditional owners of the region, and it is from their language that the town and the previous estate and station derived its name.

[2] From 1856, Thomas Sutcliffe Mort had been acquiring land in the Moruya district, and eventually owned some 38,000 acres (150 km2), a very substantial holding.

In 1860 he purchased Bodalla Station, where he planned to establish a country estate on which to retire, and demonstrate model land usage and rural settlement.

He cleared land, drained river swamps, erected fences, laid out farms, sowed imported grasses, and provided milking sheds, cheese, and butter-making equipment.

[3] [4] Sometime around the end of 1883, the trustees constructed a horse tramway from near the Bodalla Post Office to the North Narooma Wharf at Wagonga Heads to provide great savings in conveying the produce of the estate to market in Sydney.

[5] Another initiative launched by the trustees was the establishment of a commercial outlet in the Strand Arcade in the Sydney CBD to sell the milk, butter, cheese and bacon manufactured on the estate.