Ports & Harbours of Australia and New Zealand

History

Fremantle's port role began immediately after the Swan River Colony was founded in 1829, but the entrance to the Swan River estuary was blocked by a rocky bar, which made the mouth of the river virtually impassable for seagoing vessels.

The first steamship to enter the port was HMS Driver on 4 December 1845.

entered and fought against putting the vessel alongside jetty to discharge. It is a terrible place. No place to put a vessel. No shelter whatever. All the ships have to lay and discharge at the wharf or pay lighterage.... It is blowing a gale from the SW... and takes all our time to hold her.... She had done considerable damage to herself.... It is certainly the worst place I or anyone else ever saw. No place to send a ship of this size....

History

In 1872, John Moresby, a naval captain as well as hydrographer and explorer, charted Mourilyan Harbour on a coastal patrol in HMS Basilisk. He named it after one of his officers, Lieutenant T. L. Mourilyan. Moresby considered it to be an excellent landing place with a deepwater anchorage.

In the early 1880s, a small jetty was erected. In January 1884, construction began on a tramway from the harbour to the sugar mill at Mourilyan. In 1889, it was decided that steamers of up to 1,500 tons could be accommodated. A second jetty was built with a conveyor belt.

Geography

The locality of Mourilyan Harbour is a coastal area bounded by the Coral Sea on the east and the Moresby River and one of its tributary creeks to the south.

The port facility is located on the northern bank of the mouth of the Moresby River (17.5998°S 146.1245°E / -17.5998; 146.1245 (Mourilyan Port)). It is primarily used to export raw sugar and molasses but also handles other cargoes such as woodchips and cattle.

The Mourilyan Harbour Road runs roughly east–west through the locality linking the port to the town of Mourilyan to the immediate west.

Apart from the port, most of the developed land in the locality is used for growing sugarcane.

Overview

A gas fractionation plant operated by Santos was established at Port Bonython in 1982. The plant's refinery and tank farm complex receive crude oil and gas from the Cooper Basin in outback South Australia for processing and distribution. Port Bonython is the terminus of the Moomba to Port Bonython Liquids Pipeline which is 659 km long. From Port Bonython, Santos freights hydrocarbon products by sea to customers across the Asia-Pacific region.

A 2.4 km long wharf was constructed and purchased by the Government of South Australia for $48.2 million in 1983. First shipments from the facility were made that year. It was officially opened on 5 September 1984 by the South Australian Premier John Bannon.

History

Māori first arrived at Otago Harbour in the 1300s, soon after they reached New Zealand. Being too far south for the cultivation of kūmara they adopted a hunter-gatherer society. This initially involved sealing and fishing in the harbour, with the latter dominating as seal stocks diminished. This time in the harbour's history is recorded in place names such as Kamau Taurua (Quarantine Island), which means "a place where nets are set".

Captain Cook never entered Otago Harbour, but he speculated that it existed when he was off the Pacific coast in 1770. It is not known exactly when the first Europeans (likely sealers) entered the harbour, though Māori oral tradition puts it some time 'long before' 1810.

Geography

The harbour was formed from the drowned remnants of the giant Dunedin Volcano, centred close to what is now Port Chalmers. Remains of this origin can be seen in the basalt of the surrounding hills. The last eruptive phase ended some ten million years ago, leaving the prominent peak of Mount Cargill. A channel runs along the western side of the harbour, the eastern side being shallow, with large sandbanks exposed at low tide. Two islands form a line between Port Chalmers and Portobello half way along the harbour—Goat Island / Rakiriri and Quarantine Island / Kamau Taurua. The nearby smaller island known as Puddingstone or Pudding Island (Titeremoana) lies close to the Peninsula shore and can be reached by foot at low tide.

Economy

There are two main aspects to the economy in Port Alma: salt production and a cargo port.

Salt production occurs in large evaporation pans in the locality. The area is the major supplier of salt in Queensland and for the further export. The salt is used for human consumption, for swimming pools, and for industrial processes.

The port is at the town and primarily handles cargoes consisting of class 1 explosives, ammonium nitrate, bulk tallow and equipment used in support of military exercises held at Shoalwater Bay.

History

The bay was first charted by explorer George Bass in 1797 and has been used for commercial whaling and fishing since the 1840s. From the 1850s to 1950s the port was serviced by steamship companies, including the Illawarra Steam Navigation Company.

Facilities

The port consists of two commercial shipping wharves, the Mobil petroleum wharf, a cargo storage area and ancillary facilities.

The Breakwater Wharf caters for the timber industry, the fishing fleet and cruise shipping. The wharf is 105 metres (344 ft) long with depths ranging from 3 metres (9.8 ft) to the landward end and 8.8 metres (29 ft) seaward, with a tidal variation of 2 metres (6 ft 7 in). The wharf itself is concrete with rubber fending.

In 2003 a multi-purpose wharf and munitions facility was constructed to expand naval repair and refit operations and increase the port's timber export capacity by 150,000 tonnes (150,000 long tons). The length of the multi-purpose wharf is 200 metres (660 ft), accessed via a 560 metres (1,840 ft) timber jetty.

History

Whakaraupō and the surrounding hills have a long history of Māori activity. The islands of Aua and Ōtamahua (now with the dual names of Aua / King Billy Island and Ōtamahua / Quail Island respectively) were important sources of resources for local Māori, despite being uninhabited. Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Mamoe used the islands as a source of shellfish, birds eggs and flax, as well as stone for use in tools. Sandstone from Aua was used to help work other stones used by Māori, such as pounamu. The significance of Ōtamahua in this regard is recognised in its Māori name, which translates as the gathering place of eggs. The nearby Ripapa Island has evidence of more permanent habitation, and was the location of a prominent defensive Pā built by the Ngāi Tahu chief Taununu.

Geography

Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō was formed by erosion of the Banks Peninsula Volcano, which was active during the late Miocene from eruptive centres in both Lyttelton and Akaroa harbours. As the volcano eroded, the calderas formed by the eruptions were flooded, forming both of the main harbours on the Peninsula. The harbour shares a common entrance with adjacent Port Levy / Koukourarata about 2 nmi (4 km) wide, between Awaroa / Godley Head and Baleine Point, with Te Piaka / Adderley Head set back slightly. The entrance lies 2.5 nmi (4.6 km) from Sumner beach at the south east end of the sandy beaches of Pegasus Bay.

Geography and natural features

The harbour is one of two eroded volcanic centres from the extinct Banks Peninsula Volcano.

The 475-hectare (1,170-acre) Akaroa Marine Reserve was given approval in 2013 after a 17-year campaign to get it established.

As of 2011, of the seven sites that are sampled in the harbour for water quality, six are graded as "good" and one as "fair" in terms of recreational use. Rainfall affects the grading.

Tourism and environmental management

In late January 2026 a wildlife cruise, the Black Cat, became grounded at Nīkau Palm Valley Bay. There were 38 passengers and three crew on board the catamaran. The vessel was carrying more than 2000 litres of marine diesel fuel, which spilled into the harbour. Black Cat was a 17 m (56 ft) aluminium alloy boat, built in 1994 for the Whitsunday Islands. She had been running from Akaroa since 2004.

Less than two months later, a Royal New Zealand Navy vessel spilled 200-300 litres of oil into the harbour during a training exercise.

History

Before the port was established, the land was inhabited by the Ngarluma, an Aboriginal people.

Early European exploration of northwest Western Australia commenced around the Nickol Bay and Port Walcott areas, as colonial settlers established pastoral and pearling industries in the late-19th century. Early shipping links to the outside world centred on the port of Cossack (formerly Tien Tsin), now a ghost town.

In 1818, the explorer and surveyor Captain Phillip Parker King, in the Mermaid, charted Nickol Bay. Visits to the region by American whalers are recorded to have occurred from around the 1840–50s.

Geography

Port Walcott lies between Dampier and Port Hedland at the mouth of the Harding River. Landmarks within it include Cape Lambert, Wickham, Jarman Island, Butchers Inlet and the historical town of Cossack (initially called Tien Tsin), the first port in the northwest of Western Australia. The town of Roebourne is situated further inland on the banks of the Harding River.

Port Walcott's main population centre is Point Samson, which has a population of 298 (2011 census).

Local magnetic anomalies are reported northward of Cape Lambert, in the approaches to Port Walcott.

Port facilities

Port Walcott contains the port facilities of Cape Lambert, which along with the neighbouring ports at Port Hedland and Dampier, are the three major iron ore exporting ports in the Pilbara region, and in the top five ports in Australia by tonnage (81 million tonnes in 2010/11).

History

Prior to British colonisation, the Boonwurrung people lived around Warn Marin living off shellfish, mutton birds and plant life. The bay was first explored by Europeans in 1797, when George Bass received permission from Governor Hunter in Sydney to sail a whaleboat along the unexplored section of coast south of Botany Bay. On such a rough stretch of water, Bass could not get more than halfway through the strait now known as Bass Strait. This voyage led to the recording of Western Port, so named because of its situation relative to every other known harbour on the coast at that time (the area from Point Hicks to Cape Howe), even though it lies to the east of Port Phillip and the city of Melbourne.

Geography

Formerly a major river drainage system, it was inundated together with Port Phillip by the rising sea in the Holocene period; the Western Port sunkland now forms an extensive tidal bay. The waters of Western Port cover an area of 680 km² of which 270 km² are exposed as mud flats at low tide. The topography of Western Port is dominated by two large islands: French Island and Phillip Island. The coastline, including that of the islands, is some 263 km. The bay and its islands are criss-crossed by seven seismically active fault lines and experiences numerous minor earthquakes every year.

Industry and Port Operations

Western Port has several industrial complexes, including a BlueScope steel processing works and the major Royal Australian Navy training base, HMAS Cerberus. The Westernport Oil Refinery was operated by BP at Crib Point from 1966 to 1985.

The Port of Hastings Corporation, is the responsible public entity for operating in the Port of Hastings, including maintaining the associated port infrastructure. Port assets include the Stony Point Jetty and Depot, Crib Point Jetty, Long Island Point Jetty and the BlueScope Wharves (Owned by BlueScope).

Ecology

Western Port supports a mosaic of habitat types including underwater seagrass beds, intertidal rock platforms, sandy beaches, intertidal mudflats, tidal channels, saltmarshes and mangroves. The coastline around Phillip Island is of State significance because of its remnant coastal tussock grasslands and dune scrub, a rare vegetation community in Victoria.

Western Port consists of rocky platforms, sandy beaches and marine habitats. It is home to a diverse range of invertebrates including colonial ascidians, sponges and corals. Mudflats and mangrove swamps around the northern end of the bay support a large number of invertebrates that are an important food source for waders and visiting migratory birds.

History

According to Māori traditions, the waka Māhuhu-ki-te-rangi explored the Whangaroa harbour during early Māori settlement of New Zealand. The area was settled by descendants of Te Māmaru and Mataatua waka crews.

Whaling and other ships visited Whangaroa from 1805 to 1809, including the General Wellesley and Commerce in 1806, and Elizabeth in 1809. Sixty-six members of the crew of the Boyd were killed by local Māori in 1809 after the crew whipped the son of a chief. The visits ceased as a result, resuming when the Dromedary loaded timber in 1819. Southern right whales were severely depleted by the hunts and almost disappeared from the area, while dolphins and killer whales still visit the harbour more frequently.

A Wesleyan mission was founded in June 1823.