Ships And Shores And Trading Ports

Yamba and the Clarence River

The story of the Clarence Harbour Works is long and confusing, but most of the action took place in several distinct periods, beginning in the 1860s. The wide river's major problems were the bar, the reef and the narrowness of the channel inside. The bar stretches well out to sea and the shoals are complicated by an extensive reef inside the entrance plus a narrow channel which continues for some distance, so ships had to zig-zag their way in.

In 1860 engineer E.O. Moriarty designed scheme of breakwaters and training walls to straighten and fix the channel while scouring the sandbanks. During the first phase of harbour work, cane farms were growing up along the Clarence River, followed by numerous small local mills. By 1873 the CSR had established their own two mills - at Chatsworth and Harwood - so Public Works built wharves to serve their shipping needs.

The river gained its first lighthouse on Pilot Hi I in 1880 and the harbour works continued with some modifications suggested by the British visiting engineer Sir John Coode. Coode's main variation to Moriarty's original plan was to remove the reef. Public Works accepted thenew proposals in general, but now the pressures of Grafton were being dismissed for another reason.

The Clarence River lobby were pushing for the railway to come down fro. New England to the port of Grafton, with the city developing as a major centre. A league of businessmen argued against losing trade to Newcastle and they were equally upset by challenges to their trade from the Richmond River to the north and the port of Byron Bay.

River work began with a vengeance in the 1890s, when floods both aided and hindered the plans. Workmen built walls and dykes, removed rocks, dredged the river and constructed wharves. They built the Ashby Dry Dock and had their first brush with water hyacinth. But ships still had trouble with the bar, because work on the reef was not included despite bitter complaints. It was considered that the expense of removing it would not be justified by the returns.

As dairying became more important along the river banks, new butter factories brought new wharves and trade on the Clarence, The North Coast Development League continued their requests for a deep-sea port, pointing out that the Clarence River had been recommended as suitable for overseas trade in Sir George Buchhana>'Is ,national transport report of 1926.

The Clarence River has the facilities of a mini-port for fishermen, who operate from Iluka, Maclean and Yamba. And though Yamba has also established a regular shipping service with Lord Howe Island, it remains a beautiful recreational area.

Breakwater construction began again in 1950 and proceeded on and off for years, though there were no promises for a deep seaport. Yamba received a new lighthouse in 1955, the river was dredged and a new wharf was planned for Goodwood Island. The breakwaters were completed in the late 1960s, but the rocky entrance reef still remained untouched. The reef's removal was seen as unjustifiable on economic grounds and vandalism on cultural grounds - the Aboriginals felt that for the original Bundj alung people the reef was a sacred site.

The butcher boats were as big as surf boats, made of cedar highly polished, with four oars, and the butchers would deliver the meat at night to the farmers.  Many butcher boat rowers later became champion scullers - Henry Ernest Searle was one. The brush was so thick and there were so many creeks and rivers, that there were no possible roads, so there was no way of getting stores to customers except by boat. - Stuart Lee, writer and researcher