Yamba
The first European to visit the area was Matthew Flinders, who stopped in Yamba Bay for six days in July 1799.
He landed on the present southern headland at Yamba. He’d been despatched from Sydney to find a new Eden, but from his vantage point atop a craggy promontory, now Pilot Head, he dismissed the turbulent estuary as dangerous and unworthy of further examination, before sailing away. Flinders did not realise the bay was actually the mouth of the Clarence River.
In the 1830s, timber harvesting started. In 1861, the Townsite was surveyed, and by October 1862 construction of the breakwater at Clarence River Heads and the Post Office were completed. Originally named Shoal Bay and later in 1885, to be renamed Yamba, with a population of approx 340.
There are two theories as to the meaning of “Yamba”, one being that it is the local First Nations word for “headland”. But others believes the most likely derivation is an First Nations word “yumbah” meaning a rough edible shellfish the size of a person’s hand that clings to rocks and is similar to an oyster.
In 1908 the Yamba Surf Lifesaving Club was formed and is one of the oldest surf clubs in the world. Yamba began to develop as a tourist destination in the 1930s following the arrival of the railway line at nearby Grafton. Guesthouses were replaced by motels and holiday apartments following the sealing of the main road in 1958, with visitors then able to use bridges rather than punts and ferries.
Fishing and oyster industries were established in the 1880s, with prawn trawling pioneered in the 1940s. Sugar cane farming is now the major cropping industry in the region following full mechanisation of the cane cutting process in 1978. Riverboats and steamers that plied between Grafton and Sydney were gradually replaced by rail and better road connections.
Today Yamba has a strong reputation for recreational fishing, increased with the inauguration of an annual fishing contest in 1958. The town has grown into an important holiday destination with a permanent population of over 6,000.
Iluka
As with Yamba, Flinders did not realise the bay he anchored at was actually the mouth of the massive Clarence River in 1799.
During the 1820s and 1830s convicts escaping from the penal colony at Moreton Bay passed through the area and reported on a massive river. Following that report, Thomas Small of Sydney, sent his brother and two dozen sawyers on board the schooner, the Susan, to the ‘Big River’. It was the first British colonial vessel to enter the river.
Small took up a large parcel of land on Woodford Island in the 1830s. Governor Gipps named the river the Clarence in 1839.
By 1862 the present site of Iluka was described as a large sandy flat wooded area and with salt water marshes flooded at high tide. The water on the shore of the town site was deep. In that year the breakwater at the mouth of the Clarence was built.
A government wharf was completed in 1875. A tramway had been constructed out to Iluka Bluff to obtain stone for the breakwater.
A post office opened in 1876. By 1878 there were about 100 or 150 people living there – apart from two hoteliers and a storekeeper all were employed on the harbour works.
By 1890 the town was in decline. A small number stayed and became professional fishermen and by 1887 supplies were being shipped to Sydney.
Today it remains a small, thriving fishing port and a quiet holiday destination. The 2022 estimated resident population for Iluka was 1,777.