River bar a real hurdle in early days
Watching fishing boats crossing the Waitara River bar reminds me of the difficulties mariners had entering the river mouth in the early days of the settlement.
In 1867 Waitara or Raleigh as it was known then, was in its infancy. Early settlers were starting to build cottages and storekeepers were starting to show an interest in opening businesses in the very fertile valley. One of the first to settle here was Thomas Leedom who had the very commodious Waitara Hotel built, followed by small adjoining shops. He later opened a brewery.
Early shopkeepers relied on merchandise coming in to keep them supplied, so from early times the river was the only real access. Jetties were built on the river frontage adjacent to their shops. Waitara’s early main street was Queen St on the beach end. There was a military road called the Devon Line which ran from New Plymouth so cart and wagon loads of goods were brought out from New Plymouth distributors.
As of yet there were was no railway or bridge in Waitara, hard to believe isn’t it? With the high rainfall in the era the frequent silting of the river channel and the river bar was always going to be a problem with shipping. As early as 1828 it’s recorded that a ship off the coast of Waitara traded with local Maori. I’d imagine potatoes, kumara and pork would have been a welcome sight to sailors wanting a change of diet from what they had on board.
Local Maori by the early 1850s had their own ships in the river and were shipping goods to the Markets in Sydney supplying the Bendigo goldfields. In the late 1860s Websters and McKellar had erected a large warehouse in Waitara which had a rail line to the river frontage. Goods unloaded were wheeled in wooden carts to the two-storied building, which stocked all manner of goods including ships chandlery and wine and spirits.
Websters and McKellar had a steam tug which towed sailing ships in and out of the river and which was also used to try and haul ships off the bar if they grounded, and this happened often. The Harbour Board pilot who lived at the lagoon at west beach hoisted signal balls up a large mast. These large white discs could be seen at sea and signals gave the go ahead to cross the bar or the signal that it was not safe to do so.
Often the pilot who was keen on the odd dram of whisky, was asleep or was not in the mood to be disturbed. Sea captains frustrated with waiting for the signals to be hoisted, took things into their own hands and gave their ships full steam, trying to bounce across the river bar with tragic results. The panic was then on to free the ship before the sea took it to its peril. Websters tug and a steam hauler on the beachfront worked to free the ship, often with a good result, but sometimes without success. Groundings were numerous and costly.
Sailing ships, paddle steamers and flat bottomed scows weren’t too much of a problem having a shallow draught to enter the river. It was later on in the century when steamers became common place on the coast here that something urgent had to be done about the river channel and bar. James Longstaff was brought out from Hull to Waitara in 1890 and from his work diary we can see what was going on day to day with the river dredge and silt punts.
The old ‘‘White Elephant’’ dredge was in bad shape and had to be overhauled. It came from the New Plymouth Harbour Board and was pretty well worn out. The silt punts were newly commissioned from around 1882 and were replaced as time went by. The first of them could carry about 39 tons of spoil, the newer ones built around 1902 carried 55 tons of spoil from the river channel.
Silt was dumped in every accessible place. Marine Park at West Beach was once a sandy lagoon and was backfilled in there once the stone wall was erected. Not unlike the freezing works barges in size, which carried frozen meat and were towed out to awaiting ships off coastline, the silt barges were open without hatches and lined with cork and were tarred. According to the records 29 loads in one month seemed to be the record. Filled by the dredge, the silt punts were unloaded by the shovel load by the four to five labourers.
The working of the dredge was reliant on the tides and of course the weather. Labourers also were working on the stone training walls on the west and east sides. Large concrete blocks were made for the wall, which were cast hollow and filled with river silt and capped in concrete, some of these weighed 44 tons according to records. The stone walls foundation was filled with steel and pipe and old ships chains and anchors by all accounts. With a strong possibility a Freezing Company was going to build its meat works in Waitara in the 1880s, a real push to get the river up and running was a top priority.
The Freezing Works indeed happened and Waitara’s boom time river trade was from the 1880s until the World War I period. Overseas ships waited off the roadstead and steamers towed barge after barge of frozen carcases of meat out to meet them, but not without mishap.
Continuous dredging and stone wall repairs continued until the mid 1920s when rail brought about the demise of the river trade. Coupled with the rising cost of maintenance on the dredge and the continuous silting of the river, Waitara’s river trades days were numbered.