Pre-settlement
Returning to Sydney on his second expedition to explore the interior in 1818, John Oxley travelled southward along the coast from the Hastings River. He named the location at the mouth of the Hastings Port Macquarie.
Continuing on his journey south he came across the area now know as Harrington. Oxley's journals record that he named the inlet Harrington Lake after the third Earl of Harrington, Charles Stanhope (1753 - 1829).
At this time the area north of Newcastle was largely unexplored and unsettled and so it remained until around 1825. Late in 1825 surveyor Henry Dangar travelled north from Newcastle to map any streams he found and to determine whether the Harrington inlet did indeed lead into a lake. To the west Dangar discovered a large stream flowing eastward but because of the rugged nature of the terrain did not follow it to the sea.
On a second expedition in 1826 Dangar struck closer to the coast and eventually located the river he had discovered on his previous visit. He followed the river to the coast and found that it branched into two arms. He traced the southern arm to its mouth and formally named the river Manning's River after William Manning, the Deputy-Governor of the Australian Agricultural Company (AA Company) in whose name his surveys were conducted. Dangar correctly surmised that the northern arm flowed into into the sea at Harrington Inlet.
The story of the AA Company is too long and involved to go into here but it was the spark for settlement of the Manning region.
While the Manning River had been named and was used as the northern boundary for European property settlement, the navigability of the river had not been determined; indeed no one had actually sailed into the river from the sea. In 1827 two attempts were made to cross the bar. Both failed. The second attempt, by Government Surveyor James Ralfe, resulted in the vessel being wrecked on the bar. Ralfe returned to Port Macquarie on foot and reported that 'there was no clearly defined channel across Harrington Inlet' and that 'the entrance was closed by a sand bar over which a dangerous surf broke heavily.'
In October 1827 the AA Company decided to examine the problem of the river's navigability in detail. To this end Assistant Surveyor John Armstrong was appointed to conduct another boat survey to explore the river and it's entrance and channels. The survey party included Captain Neave, the Pilot from Port Macquarie and John Guilding, an immigrant from the West Indies who was considering settling in the area to grow sugar cane. From the peak of South Brother Mountain Armstrong and Guilding observed two extensive plains to the south-west adjacent to a large stream flowing towards Harrington Inlet which Armstrong correctly surmised was indeed the Manning River and that Harrington Inlet was it's mouth. Armstrong and his party arrived at Harrington Inlet on a day when conditions for entering the river were perfect, despite the bar. By 2 November they had explored and mapped to the extent of navigation, in the vicinity of Wingham Brush.
The Early Years of European Settlement
Armstrong's report confirmed the existence of large numbers of cedar trees and land suitable for grazing and agriculture which led to the Government opening the northern bank of the Manning River to settlement in August 1830 by which time there were already three settlers. John Guilding was the first of these. His selection was on the Ghinni Ghinni Creek. Apart from farming Guilding set his convicts to work cutting cedar and on 3 March 1828 the Sydney Gazette reported the arrival from the Manning of a load of cedar owned by Guilding (obviously Guilding was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet - or the cedar for that matter).
Despite publication in the Sydney Gazette proclaiming that 'a noble river and its navigable entrance' had been discovered there was no great rush to settle the Manning area. Whilst the development of agriculture and grazing was slow because of the remoteness and accessibility problems, by 1840 cedar logging was becoming quite extensive. As the river traffic increased so did the shipwrecks and mishaps on the bar.
The decade of the 1840's saw growth in the settlement of rural selections so that by 1855 townships had emerged at Wingham (1841). Cundletown, and Taree (1855). All depended on shipping for supply and the delivery of produce to Sydney. Harrington came to be known as the 'Gateway to the Manning'. Navigation over the bar remained a hazardous activity and it was common to see a number of vessels either laying off waiting to enter or anchored in the river awaiting favourable conditions to venture out. In the twenty years from 1835 to 1855, 11 vessels were wrecked on or near the Harrington Inlet bar.
Here Come the Pilots
Following repeated representations by the farmers and cedar cutters the Government appointed the first Pilot, Captain Richard Powell, in August 1856. Powell was succeeded in turn by Captains Joesph Bradley (1863), John Muir (1875), William Scott Murray (1892), James Kerkin (1901), Phillip Bradley (1921), M C Black (1936), S W Muir (1936-37), M Cauvin (1937) and finally by William Whitmore who died while still employed there in 1961. Following Whitmore's death the Pilot Station was deemed to be no longer necessary. Cottages were sold, the flagstaff dismantled and workshops and equipment removed and transferred to Laurieton and Sydney. The era of the Manning River as a commercial port ended. In fact the completion of the Sydney - Brisbane rail line in 1932 signalled the end of commercial shipping on the Manning River. The last steamer to visit Wingham was in 1939. During it's 95 years of operation the Pilot Station at Harrington Inlet contributed much to the development of the commerce of the Manning Valley.
The Pilot Station was finally replaced by the Crowdy Harrington Marine Rescue Station which took delivery of it's first rescue vessel in Jan 2011, having previously relied on assistance from Forster and Laurieton.
Entering and leaving the Manning River under sail was a tedious and hazardous operation, made more so without the expertise of the local pilot. The danger lessened somewhat with the development of maritime steam power and the introduction of a local tugboat in the late 1800's. Not withstanding these events some 22 vessels were wrecked on or around the bar between 1856 and 1931.
By the 1880's it was decided that something had to be done to improve the safety of the Manning Inlet and the NSW Gowvernment appointed Sir John Goode, an renowned British civil engineer to develop plans for a breakwater. He recommended that three breakwatrer walls be constructed; an outer southern wall with a barrier bank, a southern spit and a northern training breakwater. In 1898 the Parliamentary Public Works Committee approved modifications to Goode's design which saw only the northern and southern walls approved. (Nothing much seems to have changed regarding approval of public works in the century since, has it?) In the meantime a quarry had been established on the southern side of Crowdy Head and in 1894 quarrying began to provide the rock to build the walls. Construction of the walls continued until the outbreak of WW 1 in 1914. After the war construction resumed until 1929. At this point the southern wall was barely started.
The construction of the walls never met expectations. Despite dredging, silting and channel movement still occurred and caused shipping delays.
The debate about the design of the breakwater still continues; silting and sand movement continues and the bar still remains dangerous. The southern (inner) breakwall contributes significantly to the silting that has occurred inside the river itself.
The Era of Commercial Shipping
Commercial shipping, which began in 1828 with the shipment of Guilding's cedar logs to Sydney, continued for over a century. The early years of the twentieth century saw it peak. There were many shipping companies, but the largest was the North Coast Steam Navigation Company, with sailings from the Manning about every fifth day.
In the 1930's shipping on the Manning suffered a spectacular decline under the competition of rail and road transport; 1941 was the last year of regular commercial shipping on the Manning River. The Pilot station remained in operation for a further twenty years.
Seeing the bar in action
The best time to see the bar at it's most spectacular is between half and full tide on the inflow, especially when there is a large swell running from the east to southeast. You can check the tide times and swell forecasts for Harrington Inlet here. Use the Crowdy Head swell forecast data. Harrington has no swell forecast.
The Cache
The cache is a black cylindrical metal container about 30 cm long located in the dunes off the northern (outer) breakwall with lots of room for swaps of a nautical nature. There is also a First to Find Geocoin.
From the published parking it requires a 1.5 km round walk. Wear a good pair of shoes or boots. Whilst the terrain is generally flat the breakwall is covered with sharp scalpings. If you take any pictures of the bar add them to the gallery.
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