The Ever-Changing Bar
The Richmond River bar was treacherous!
The topography of the bar at Ballina made it more dangerous than most river bars. The south head was a low sandy beach and the north head was studded with jagged rocks.
The entrance channel was constantly changing position and the mouth of the river was full of shifting sand banks. The confluence of the North Creek and the Richmond River disrupted the flow and created eddies at the bar. The depth of water changed with the tides occasionally shallowing from 14 feet [4.2m] to 7 feet [2.1m]. Frequent floods would scour the entrance and deep channels formed for a few months afterwards.
When Captain Rous first visited in 1828, his sketch of the river mouth indicates that the channel was underneath North Head beside the rocky shore. Peppercorne’s map of 1855 shows Shaw’s bay as “Old Channel” and the North Spit has now formed as a wide sand shoal. By 1871, Gowlland’s map shows a channel has broken through the south spit leaving a sand shoal blocking almost the entire entrance.
Steam powered ships did not arrive until the 1860s so the cedar fleet was all under sail. If the wind, sea and tide were favourable, ships could enter by sailing over the crossing, but more often skippers were obliged to use rowing boats and kedge anchors to warp their way into Shaw’s Bay, and across the inner flats to the wharves or Mobbs Bay.
There was no Pilot or lighthouse until Captain Easton was appointed in 1855. It was the pilot’s job to “sound the bar”, find out the depth and hoist a flag if it was safe to cross. Sometimes the Pilot would go onboard the ships to guide them through the safe part of the channel.
Between white settlement on the river in 1842, and the arrival of the tugboats in the early 1870s, more than 50 ships under sail had been wrecked trying to cross the bar – 8 in one year.
In spite of the danger, the ships kept coming. The red cedar was like gold and the profits were high. In 1869, 242 sailing ships and 12 steamers voyaged from the Richmond River to Sydney in one year, carrying over three million super feet of cedar.
The frustrations of the Captains caused by the vagaries of the bar and the delays of cargo deliveries for the settlers initiated the formation of the Progress Association to bring these issues to the attention of the government. They were requesting a subsidised tug-boat service to tow ships safely through the channel and across the bar.
At one point, 42 vessels were bar-bound for 17 weeks as it was too dangerous to cross. Ships stuck out at sea had to detour to Byron Bay to obtain fresh water and supplies.

A temporary light was first established on North Head in 1866 to guide ships into the river channel.
Tenders were called for construction of the 17ft circular stone tower and keepers cottage, it was built in 1879 and began operating the following year.



OUR BAR.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE RICHMOND RIVER HERALD. Friday 3 August 1888 Courtesy of Trove
Sir,— The improvement of the entrance of the Richmond River is at present one of the leading topics of the day, and it must therefore be most gratifying to all who have the interest of the river and district at heart to learn that the sum of £50,000 has been placed on the Loan Estimates for that purpose. Having of late had occasion to go to Ballina on business I had through the courtesy of Captain F. Fenwick, an opportunity of closely examining the bar; also the intricate and dangerous passage through Shaw’s Bay.
The present channel is further north than it has been for over 20 years, and leads now between beacon rocks and point at Pilot’s house around the shores of Shaw’s Bay, its shoalest part being about two or three cables northward of beacon rocks, having a depth of 7ft. 6in. at high water, with a very dangerous bottom, large boulders thickly studded over the sand, while the southern spit has made down to the north-west, leaving a passage of only about 50ft. clear.
The rush of the current through this channel at about half-tide is simply terrific, rendering it next to impossible to take a vessel in or out except at slack water flood tide, and as most of our ocean steamers draw, when half loaded, about 7ft. 5in., they have at present to go out less than half-loaded, and then only with the assistance of a tug in and out. This expense, together with very serious detention and injury to the boats through grounding, should be a good and sufficient reason for higher freights.
The outer bar is fairly good, having on its shoalest part 10ft. 6in. at high water. There does not appear to be any probability of a better state of things until a start is made to carry out Sir John Coode’s plans for its permanent improvement, and it appears to be the opinion of the highest local authorities at Ballina (I may say also that it is my own) that as soon as the wall is finished for the purpose of training the waters of the North Creek to work in harmony with those of the main river for scouring purposes, and the passage blocked between point at pilot house and beacon rocks — a straight passage must at once break through the south sand spit, and the velocity of the tide being so much increased a permanent channel will be thus secured.
£50,000 well and judiciously spent should secure this much at least. The southern training wall, breakwaters, and other improvements would speedily follow, and there is no doubt that the £136,000 specified by Sir John Coode, if spent with prudence and economy, would secure to our river an entrance second to none on the northern coast. The scouring of this (and not a railway) is our first want, and one and all should put their shoulder to the wheel to obtain it. When it is done we will be prepared to compete with other producing countries ; population and capital will steadily but surely flow in ; our waste lands will be drained, production will rapidly increase, a larger and better class of steamers will come, railways will follow as feeders to them, and our river and district will then take the place that nature and nature’s God has destined for it — viz., the premier producing district of the Australian colonies.
I am, &c., Coraki, August 1st 1888. J. S.
The Construction of the Breakwall
For many years the only access to the outside world, if one lived on the Richmond River, was by sea. From the earliest settlement days the bar gained the reputation of being difficult to cross with dangerous seas and changeable weather. Thus, reports on the necessity for clearing the bar at the river mouth began early. The Moriarty Report of 1856 was shelved for many years. A departmental survey was carried out in 1885 by Sir John Coode. His report was released in 1887.
Shaw’s Bay, which lay under North Head, received both the waters of North Creek and the river. To the south lay Mobb’s Bay and a long sandy beach. Sir John Coode saw the following difficulties in the way of clearing a path to the sea:
(a) The river had a shifting channel—the entrance in 1871 was one and a quarter miles south of the North Head. In 1884 it was only five hundred yards to the south.
(b) North Creek water was in direct conflict with the water of the main river.
(c) New channels were continually being scoured out by floods and easterly gales.
Because of these difficulties it was recommended that, firstly, the channel be fixed by building a South training wall to prevent the breakthrough to the south. Secondly, a North wall should be built to neutralise the effect of Beacon Rock on the channel and to prevent breaks through to the north. These walls were expected to create a scour. To prevent the conflict of waters (of the main river and North Creek) it was proposed to build a training wall to divert waters from North Creek in a north easterly direction.
The report was adopted by a parliamentary committee in 1889 in view of the Richmond district population of 22,000 and work was begun in 1892.
Two quarries were used, the first on the north bank of the river, south east of the present Shaw’s Bay Hotel, the second at Riley’s Hill where a flourishing community with a post office grew up.
Timothy Toohey, contractor for the Prospect Dam, came to Ballina as contractor, Thomas Keele was civil engineer in charge. Punts, laden with boulders taken in tow by government tug-boats, and occasionally by Captain Fenwick’s tug-boats, were guided to the crane wall which had been erected close to the start of the south wall. Locomotives drawing stone laden trucks trundled their way along the tramways which were built along the crowns of the north and south walls. By 1893 the North Creek training bank was begun and a bridge built across the creek. The wall was finished in 1894 and by 1896 the North Creek canal, which served to cut the North Creek into the main river was completed.
Between 1898 and 1899 sand blowing around the south wall began to silt up the channel and work on the north wall was suspended while day and night shifts worked to lengthen the south wall. In 1900 work was resumed on the north wall and continued until 1905.
By 1910-11 the south wall was still 71 feet short of Coode’s plan and the problem of subsidence at its head was causing concern. Repair work to remedy this was carried out in 1911 and the breakwater was finished in 1912. Riley’s Hill ceased to exist as a flourishing township and the post office was closed. Except for minor repairs in 1937 and 1938 no other major work was needed, just regular maintenance.
Gains were: (a) A new entrance to the river; (b) a straighter, more reliable and more regularly dredged channel; (c) a bridge to East Ballina; (d) the Lighthouse Beach; and (e) Shaw’s Bay Lagoon. Of recent years the tempo of port development has very much slackened. It probably received its death-blow when the North Coast Steam Navigation Company ceased to function in 1954.
A beach formed over many years from the built up of sand between the northern breakwall and North Head. This created a lagoon at Shaws Bay. For many years it was known as Tomki Beach after the s.s. Tomki was stranded there in 1907. The remains of the s.s. Lismore can also be found at the base of North Head.
In more recent years, a new suburb and caravan park have been built on the reclaimed land.











The Canal

The entrance of North Creek into the river had shoaled up to such an extent that it presented two major difficulties. The first was the hazard to the navigation of ships in the river caused by the conflict of the creek water with the river water. The second was that it had become impossible for the Colonial Sugar Refinery’s punts to carry cane from the North Creek farms to the company’s mill on the riverbank at Broadwater. A way out of both difficulties was found by cutting a canal, about a mile above Ballina, from North Creek to connect with the Richmond River at a spot well upstream from its mouth. A training wall, built out into North Creek from where the canal joined it, diverted much of its strength into the canal, thus easing the conflict of waters near the river mouth. The new canal, at the same time, provided a quicker and safe passage for the cane barges.
Actually the canal, set out and surveyed by Mr. D.G. Brodie, the then resident engineer, used as much as possible of the course of Fishery Creek and thus joined the river at the mouth of the latter next to Bagot’s timber mill. The canal is 2½ miles in length, 60 feet wide and has a low-water depth of 8 feet. To construct the canal, all vegetation was removed from its proposed course and the higher portions of the ground were cut down by pick and shovel gangs. Two dredges were then employed, the “Alcides” beginning from the river end and the “Zeta” from the North Creek end. Both dredges progressed at a rate of from 100 ft. to 150 ft. per week. With the completion of the project in 1896, Ballina became an “island” and, to cater for both road and canal traffic, two high level bridges had to be built – one on the road to Lismore, the other on the road to Bangalow.
During the same period dredging operations were carried out on the bar and a new and straighter channel cut in 1884 by the dredge “Archimedes”. Sand removed from the channel was used in reclaiming 63 acres of land, part of which now lies between River and Tamar streets.

Missingham Bridge
Missingham Bridge was built over North Creek in 1906 to replace the ferry from East Ballina to Ballina Island.
The 2nd bridge was closed to vehicular traffic in 1970 when it was found that the deterioration in the wooden pylons was dangerous. The 3rd bridge was opened in 1986.


