During a chat with Chappie Munn in 2006 he related how he had lived as a young boy in a house overlooking Ford Creek just to the west of Racecourse Paddock 59400E 19200N, the property was known as “The Veld”.   In the period 1890 to 1905 the cleared areas of Mandeni Park were farmed for corn which was transported by ox-wagon along Red Hill Road to Munn’s Maizena factory in Merimbula.   After the closure of Munn’s Maizena around 1910 the area reverted to cattle grazing with some sleeper cutting.   There was a small saw mill on “Egan’s 40” north east of the bridge over Hostel Creek, this mill cut timber used to build Savage’s house north of the Vegie Garden, this house was eventually moved to Valley High on the edge of Merimbula Creek and was purchased by Chiffa High from Mrs Beasley around 1978.

Chappie Munn confirmed that there had been some small-scale alluvial gold mining in the headwaters of Sandy Beach Creek (then known as Killarney Creek) and that there was a Chinese market garden based on water from Ford Creek kust north of Mandeni.   During the 1930’s Bill Dowling operated a non-commercial shale-oil still on what is now Woodbine Park.

Manna Park, then part of Killarney, was abandoned around 1940.   Mandeni had a few head of cattle and a farm shed near Red Hill Road when purchased by Rob and Juleen High in 1984.   The name “Mandeni” came from an area of Zululand, South Africa, where Rob had commissioned a centrifuge at Mandeni Pulp and Paper in 1965.   Manna Park was named after the manna gums that grew in the hostel area – none grew at Mandeni.

Sapphire Coast Drive and Mandeni Cabins were both built in 1988-89 and “Mandeni” in 1990.   The land for Manna Park was purchased from Smee in 1996 and the hostel built in 1997-98.   The carpentry Centre was part of an overall youth-training and charity project, it started in 1999 but was closed during the restructuring of North Eden Timber in 2005.

The Vegie Garden was part of the original youth training project, it was converted to a neighbourhood garden club in 2006.

Manna Park's Mountain Bike Track and the Hammock Hilton were completed for Xmas 2008.

The above history explains some of the strange distribution of native plants, especially trees, that are now a feature of Mandeni Park.   The abandoned cornfields were colonised by Eucalyptus elata, wattle and scrub – no Bloodwoods  are found in these areas, although they are   a major component of the surrounding unploughed fields.   Blackbutt, E. pilularis, is absent from Manna Park but very common at Mandeni, probably because it was selectively harvested for sawn timber, similarly white bloodwood was a popular timber species and now there is only a lone survivor at 62080E 18580N.