Shoalhaven River
The Shoalhaven River is a river rising from the Southern Tablelands and flowing into the ocean near Nowra on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia.
History
The explorer and navigator George Bass found the entrance to the Shoalhaven River during his whaleboat voyage down the south coast of New South Wales in 1797. He gave the name Shoals Haven to the river which is now known as the Crookhaven River, due to the shoals of mud and sand he found at the mouth of the river.[1]
Geography
The Shoalhaven rises on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range about 350 kilometres southwest of Sydney. The upper reaches flow northwards through an upland pastoral district near the town of Braidwood. The river works its way down into a remote canyon east of Goulburn and emerges into the coastal lowlands at Nowra in the Shoalhaven district, where it is spanned by the historic Nowra Bridge.
Berry Canal
The estuary has two entrances, a southern one at Crookhaven Heads that is permanently open, and northern one at Shoalhaven Heads which is open intermittently during floods.[2] The entrances are 5 km apart, and around 150 km south of Sydney.
A short canal between the Shoalhaven and the Crookhaven was convict constructed in the June 1882 by a convict party overseen by Hamilton Hume under the direction of Alexander Berry to facilitate ship transport to the original European settlement there.[3] The construction of the canal formed Comerong Island. The canal was dug using own hand tools, and was the first land navigable canal in Australia. It remains one of two navigable canals in New South Wales, the other being the Alexandra Canal.
Use for water supply
Tallowa Dam is the only major dam on the Shoalhaven, and is a part of the Shoalhaven Scheme. It impounds the river's lower reaches to form Lake Yarrunga and part of Sydney's water supply. Some water is pumped out of the lake and over the Southern Highlands into Lake Burragorang. Proposals for a much larger water storage at Welcome Reef on the upper Shoalhaven have been shelved.
Environment
The Shoalhaven River and its main tributary the Kangaroo River were once renowned as an Australian bass fishery. Unfortunately, Tallowa Dam has been a potent barrier to migratory native fish with estuarine/marine juvenile stages, blocking species including Australian bass from more than 80% of their former range in the Shoalhaven system. Recent stockings of hatchery-bred Bass in Lake Yarrunga are an attempt to remediate the situation[citation needed]. A fishway for Tallowa Dam was completed in August 2009. [4] This fishway is designed to allow for the movement of bass and other native fish over the dam. [5] Lake Yarrunga has also suffered the illegal introduction of highly damaging exotic carp, which are now present in high densities.
Crossings
The river crossings include, in order of river flow:
- Warri Bridge carries the Kings Highway, near Braidwood. A bridge at this location was first opened on 23 September 1874,[6] and later replaced by the current structure.
- Stewart's Crossing is a ford on Stewart's Crossing Road.
- Oallen Crossing is a single lane timber bridge for the Oallen Ford Road at Oallen Ford, near Nerriga constructed in 1936
- Nowra Bridge carries the Princes Highway between Bomaderry and Nowra.
- Comerong Island Ferry carries vehicles and pedestrians to Comerong Island near the river mouth.
References
- ^ The Brisbane Courier. 26 July 1924. p. 19 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20745147.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ NSW Department of Natural Resources. "Estuaries in NSW". Retrieved 19 October 2009.
- ^ "[[Australian Dictionary of Biography]]". Retrieved 16 October 2009.
{{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help) - ^ "NSW's first fish lift to save the endangered Grayling" (Press release). Sydney Catchment Authority. 23 August 2009. Retrieved 20 October 2009.
- ^ New South Wales Department of Primary Industry, Improving Fish Passage in the Shoalhaven (PDF)
- ^ "THE OPENING OF THE WARRI BRIDGE". The Sydney Morning Herald. 28 September 1874. p. 3.
Gehrke, P.C., Gilligan, D.M. & Barwick, M. (2002) Changes in fish communities of the Shoalhaven River 20 years after construction of Tallowa Dam, Australia. River Research and Applications 18: 265–286.
