Tathra Warf - National Engineering Landmark #36 Tathra, New South Wales, Australia
By Team MavEtJu on 18-Oct-15. Waypoint GA7643

Tathra Warf - National Engineering Landmark #36

Tathra has a special place in the history of the south coast of New South Wales. Cargo vessels called there from the 1850s and by 1890 when the Illawarra Steam Navigation Company (ISNC) ran a weekly service, it was the main port for the far south coast. ‘On the headland above the wharf there was a shipping office and a post office, with the large and imposing Ocean View Hotel where horse drawn coaches waited to meet the ships and take passengers to Bega, centre of the farming district ‘As well as the cheese and other produce and livestock sent to Sydney, intercolonial steamers called at Tathra wharf to load prime live pigs, fattened on dair y surplus and maize grown on the alluvial soils of the Bega River flats and at Pambula and Merimbula. This major export cargo gave the name ‘pig and whistle fleet’ to the ISNC’s south coast steamers, which were said to wait an hour for a pig, but not one minute for a passenger.’

Tathra wharf was the gateway to the rich Bega Valley and the Monaro District that lay beyond, when coastal shipping was for over 80 years a vital link between the isolated settlements of the far south coast and the outside world. However, with improved roads the coastal trade declined from the 1920s with the last ship taking freight from Tathra in November 1954.

Contents of the plaque:

Tathra Wharf

Tathra is the only open sea timber wharf on Australia’s East Coast surviving from the coastal steamer trade era. Critical to development of the far South Coast of NSW, the wharf dates from 1862. With its facilities it was progressively upgraded, remaining in ser vice until 1954. The wharf exhibits techniques in the design and maintenance of heavy timber marine structures of the NSW Public Works Department over the period. It is associated with eminent engineers E O Moriarty and E M de Burgh, and the builder Oakes & Oakes.

The Institution of Engineers Australia, Bega Valley Shire Council, Community of Tathra. 2008

When logging this virtual, please add a photo of yourself or your GPSr at the plaque.

For more information, please see this page at the Heritage Register at the Engineers Australia website: https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/portal/heritage/tathra-wharf-1862