AN HISTORICAL PADDLE UP DORA CREEK AND ITS TRIBUTARIES

By Brian Lemin Introduction: By now all of you will know my fascination with Creeks. Whilst I have been totally absorbed by a recent TV series on the rivers of England, I am not attempting in any way to copy that fascinating format in this brief article. In the quiet moments when paddling up a creek I often find my mind wandering as to what happened there in times past. During my trips I look at the lovely houses, well kept gardens, the lawns being mowed, the guys throwing in their fishing lines. I listen to the birds, watch their behavior and occasionally see a bird that I have not seen before or one which is magnificent in its flight and appearance. But today I want to take you on a mixture of these things up, what may be called my “local creek. From Lake Macquarrie. If you come in from the Lake, the entrance can be quite shallow if you do not keep close to the channel markers. On both sides you have small but significant wetlands areas (as indeed the wetlands border the creek and its tributaries its full distance). On you right is Dora Point, a nicely wooded and grasses area suitable for a short walk and good bird observation. This was really created or possibly reclaimed at the time of the Eraring power station construction. On your left a much more natural point of Stingeree Point. The boundaries of these areas are roughly corresponding to the commencement of the appearance of houses. (Note on Stingeree: The Common Stingeree occurs from southern Queensland to southern New South Wales, ... As its common name suggests it is a type of stingray) The small island in the mouth of the creek by the side of Stingeree Point s, as far as I can tell, not named, though I suspect the local fishermen might have a name for it. It is possible to paddle through the inner channel but it is very shallow. That island is rich with birds if you have a

quiet moment to listen to them; however that can be quite difficult as there is a busy little boat ramp almost opposite it at the end of Dora Street. This boat ramp has been used for a long time and many remember it being a “muddy ramp at the end of a muddy road” A certain amount of reclamation had to be undertaken to the land in the years that the houses along that part of Dora Street were built.

Up from the boat ramp. The creek is still wide and whilst the houses on the Dora Street are generally on smaller blocks, many of those on the other side have larger blocks. A lot of boats are moored on the Dora Street side amongst them an elegant large wooden boat of a type I “know not” but it looks pretty classical. There are house boats, boats being done up boats which to me look very expensive too. In earlier times a line of fishing boats would be chugging up the creek, the leading boat had a sharks jaws mounted on the bow! When the railway came, the train would even wait for them as they were always late, and their catch would be loaded directly on to the box cars at the back of the train.

There was also net fishing in the river and the “Smeatons” were well known for their prowess in this style of fishing also for rowing in a standing position and facing forward! What is more enjoyable from my point of view is the pelican and swan area that is in a shallow part of the creek, on a bend and is on the Dora Street side. They are almost always there and you will be unlucky not to see them. The will fly off if you paddle through them, but having done that once and not enjoyed the shallow paddling besides uprooting the birds I now paddle around them. It always seems a long time before I see the Dora Creek Bridge, but that is probably because I move over to the Stingeree side to look up into the trees to see the Shags. I discovered they nested there last year when I saw lots of baby shags in those trees. Unfortunately I did not have a camera with me. Once the bridge is in sight you can see the Dora creek settlement for a fair way as you paddle up the creek to the bridge. Dora Creek (the town) Frankly there is not much to see or do if you decide to stop and get out of the kayak. Nice fish and chips and coffee, but nowhere really easy to beach and land, just paddle along until you see somewhere that you put in to. Historically, this is where it all happened. It began with the name of Newport, but this was based on a wrong interpretation of a land grant, so then got its current name. It comes from an aboriginal name “Doree Dooree” which means something like “a creek that runs into the lake”. It also was once called Dora Brook. It was a logging town, a boat building town and very much a fishing town. Even after the railway the bullock carts brought logs to the station. The railway coming in 1887 changed its status immensely as it then had access to greater markets for its railway sleepers and pit props. Up until then they were shipped by steamers to the collieries and other

appropriate places on the lake and indeed further afield. It appears that those ships that were going out of the lake were limited to about 30 tons in order to get through the channel. I had always thought that, before the rail bridge (which came before the road bridge) there was a punt crossing, but I can find no confirmation of this. I have discovered that there were barges that carried freight from one side of the creek to the other. If you look to your left as you go under the bridge there is a boat ramp there (which I often use) and this was the site of the barge loading. There were a number of wood yards and boat builders there; one of them was virtually on the Dora Creek rail station. Almost all this industry was packed around the bridge and the railway station. Only some 400 people lived on the Dora side of the river whist about 100 lived on the Stingeree side, including just a few aboriginal persons. The bridge changed all that. In the mid 1960s there were a few aboriginal families living in corrugated iron huts in and around Dora Creek. A lake pleasure steamer called there and it was a popular place for picnics.

A Dora Creek, Toronto regatta winner Construction of Eraring Power station across the Creek

Dora Creek Bridge Up from the Bridge. Most of the historical excitement is now over. After a little while only the Dora side of the creek is housed visibly, from then on the dwellings become a little less frequent. If you can use your imagination on that first stretch of the river before the first bend and further think “2 streets back” there was a boys home there from about 1910 to 1920. What is interesting is that on those grounds there was gazebo where the locals came for dancing on Saturday nights. It was towards this first bend (Livingstone’s corner) that a sad event occurred at Molly’s rock. She was a teen and engaged. She fell off the rock, could not swim… he fiancé dived in after her and they both died in each other’s arms! This occurred in 1911. Why is the rock no longer there? They blew it up after that event. I cannot place its exact position as yet.

As you go up the creek you gradually become closer to Morisset, (on the left side) there are a few farms and also a very effective rehabilitation center (alcohol, drugs and gambling). You often see the guys fishing from a dilapidated house come boatshed there. Some like to talk. One guy told me he had a $5000 a week gambling habit before he came to the centre. The ecologists amongst you will be interested to know that each side of the river are important catchment and even wetlands areas as we travel up river. You can’t really see them but as you get closer to the confluence of Stockland Creek with Dora Creek, on your right hand side is firstly the Kalang, then the Herringbone wetlands. The creek is still wide up to this junction and quite a lot of bird and marine life can be observed.

From Dora Creek bridge around the first bend.

Stocklands Bridge

Up Stocklands Creek I have not discovered why or the origin of the name “Stocklands Creek”, the Stockland that we know is long way from here! We turn left at this junction and leave Dora Creek for a time. Immediately on your left is a vacation school that often includes canoeing in the experiences it gives the children from Sydney (usually). If you enlarge this area on Google earth you can actually see the canoes in this part of the creek. I hope I am not falling into the realm of political incorrectness, but the best sight I had was about 6 canoes all packed with Muslim girls, headdress and all. It was a delightful experience and girls were very happy to talk about their experience. They were loving it. As you begin to turn right along the creek, on your left; almost on the apex of that bend (just before a mini Island) there is a short, but very pretty inlet. You can’t get very far up it, but the bowing of the trees in a glorious archway makes it a very pretty sight. You can paddle inside that island but there is rubbish there and you are missing nothing. It is also very shallow. Just a bit before the bridge on the right, lived a man named Mr. James who lived his life sailing on “windjammers” Now, in about the 1920s he rowed a catamaran and also made canoes. So we are not the first to ply the river paddling forwards on a narrow boat. Here is a picture of one of his canoes with Barbara Corbett in it.

So we continue on. Just on the river (Beauty Point Road is behind it) is a lovely small peninsula that locals use for a bit of fishing and the birds’ just love it. You can paddle up the inlet but it is very short. You then come to Stockland Bridge and the name “Deaves” comes into prominence. They were very much a timber family and moved into the area about 1861 and sometime after that one of the family (a cousin I think) built the Stockland bridge (I need to find out more about that!) The creek at that stage was used for loading logs onto steamers and barges and was dug out deeper around the bridge for those purposes. On Google earth you can see the old “road” and you can launch (with difficulty) your kayak from the point above the bridge on the Morisset side and keeping close to the bridge. From then on the creek becomes somewhat more difficult to navigate. Firstly there are some wide sweeping bends, then as you go farther up it becomes narrower and more and more trees block you passage. I once got within 200 meters of the freeway; others have been to the freeway in earlier years.

Before I talk about Moran’s Creek which joins Stockland Creek under the freeway I need to say that the catchment for Stocklands Creek, whilst it is mapped gets very confusing as it appears to intermingle frequently with wetland areas. A few creeks are named as it goes higher up, Tobin’s Creek, Sawpit Creek and all sorts of wetlands swamps. I leave that to more knowledgeable people than myself to sort out, but I do know that you can’t kayak any further than the freeway bridge, even if you can get that far.

Stocklands Creek is the lower one.

Stocklands Creek from the bridge to the freeway. Moran’s Creek. I have a “thing” about Moran’s Creek even though it is un-kayakable. In about 1916 Mr. Moran applied for permission to dig a drain from his swamp land above the now Mandalong road to drain it into Stockland Creek. Locals tell me that he dug a 2 foot drain all the way down to where the freeway and Stocklands meets. Locals tell me that it should be known as “Moran’s Drain” but the local turf grower was fined for taking water out of Moran’s Creek! If it was a creek then OK, but you can’t be fined for taking water out of a drain. There is the rub. The council says that Moran did not dig a drain, but straightened out the tributary that ran from his land to Stockland Creek and thus it was a Creek, but at least they have given it his name. What is amazing is that a “drain had now become a 20 meter wide and 10 meter deep waterway! Just look at the picture of Moran’s “drain” below… It is so

straight… I find it hard to believe he “straightened” out the “creek”. It looks like a constructed drain to me. But who am I?

Moran’s “Creek”! Having got my “thing” off my chest, let us go back to the junction of Dora and Stocklands. From the junction to Cooranbong and “Jigadee Creek.” This time we take the right hand fork and paddle our way up towards Cooranbong. Nothing of special importance seems to occur until we go under the Freeway Bridge and are faced with another fork in the river.

Firstly we will take the right turn into Jigadee Creek, or is it? That is what most council maps seem to call it and, if go far enough up the creek, that is indeed what it is called, but certainly this first portion is locally known as Sandy Creek. (My first incidence of it is n a map dated 1885)This Creek like the rest of Dora Creek was heavily timbered and was one of the places where steamers and barges were loaded up to take the timber to the lake and to Newcastle. This creek borders on Avondale College and indeed the students often used to swim at this junction in the past (now they have a swimming pool!) You can only really kayak about 2 kms further up this creek before the trees across the creek stop your progress. We now track back to the junction of Dora and Sandy Creeks and make our way upon to Cooranbong. Junction of Sandy and Dora Creeks to Cooranbong It is a pretty part of the creek with the Sanitarium Health food Factory’s “swing bridge” just across the creek. Let us pause here for a bit as the factory used the creek to barge its goods down to Dora Creek and the railway for many years. Before that it was used for log barges and steamers. The steamers also brought passengers for business and leisure trips.

One other snippet I have been able to glean is that some barges loaded with boxes of Marmite and other SHF products were p9oled down to the Dora Creek station. They needed to keep near the sides of the creek, they used saplings as poles and then they walked to the front of the barge, sunk the poles into the mud and then walked “back” to the rear of the boat. We paddle on, as we are making for “Cooranbong” Harbour”. To us it seems amazing that there is a harbor there. I have only discovered that I lived 200 meters from it for about 12 years before I knew where it was! (It is behind Frisco’s… [junction Deaves and Freemans Roads opposite a petrol station] ask him and he will show it to you!) You take a left off the river to enter this almost 100 meter diameter circle of water. We should talk about Cooranbong/Kourumbong/Corumbong. It means something like a place where water goes over the rocks or Rocky

bottom. The township was built on timber for all sorts of purposes but mainly pit props, shingles and railway sleeper. There were three large sawmills in the area and all their produce was shipped from this harbor. Not only that there was a ship building industry there. In 1874 the first ship was built by, Messers Kenah and Braid. I was 45 feet keel length and could carry 30 tons. This was the first of many ships built at Cooranbong. To get an idea of how busy the river was in 1875 when Thomas Russell (King of Cooranbong commerce!) started the Lakes first steam powered ferry. It carried 100 passengers, had a draught of only 3 feet and passengers from Cooranbong could get off at Belmont, Catherine Hill Bay and then Newcastle as its destination. This harbour saw, ketches, barges and steamboats in its day.

Cooranbong Harbour We need to go out of the harbour now and travel further up Dora Creek. So head out and turn left. I am afraid that you will not go much more than a kilometer before your journey is blocked by fallen trees. So there is not much more to do than to head back to the lake.

Sandy Creek – upwards. Dora creek horizontal

Cooranbong Harbour. Conclusion. I hope you have enjoyed your paddle today. You will have done about 20 kms as well as been told a lot of history. Thanks for coming.