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7. The Boat Harbour:
In the early 1960’s there were just bare sandbanks along the entire river to the estuary bar leading to the open ocean. The trawler Fleet would be moored at a series of wooden posts with a wooden ramps. When the tide came in, the ramps would be cut off by deep water behind the ramps. Groups of teenagers would fish with handlines off the ramps and off the backs of the trawlers. You catch bream, whiting and the occasional flathead.

I remember fishing with handlines with Dad along the sandbars going out towards the bar. In the early 1960’s that all changed. The local council began to build basalt boulder walls all along the river from a purpose built trawler harbour to walls that extended the bar out beyond the beach on the north and south side of the river. This was to give the trawlers a safe passage at any tide … to exit of or enter river. It was otherwise very dangerous to exit of or enter river on a lower tide. The trawlers could easily capsize with the rough water. See the photographs above.

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