The Kiama-Bombo Basalt Quarries

Roads, railways and tramways in New South Wales - all being extended over long distances in the second half of the 18th century - required blue metal. Enormous quantities of it.

Basalt in the Bombo-Kiama area was abundant, could easily be quarried and crushed into blue metal, and could then be shipped with relative ease to major centres such as Sydney. So, from the 1880s, Bombo-Kiama became the state’s primary source of its supply.

In 1871 the first commercial load of crushed stone was delivered to Sydney on the 'Tim Whiffler' – which in 1876 became the first ship to enter the newly-constructed Kiama Harbour. It was probably quarried from Pikes Hill (where the Kiama Leisure Centre is today) and shipped from Black Beach.

Other quarries were soon opened. Initially the rock was transported in drays along Terralong Street (the main street of Kiama), but in 1881 construction began on a tramway. However, it didn’t prove to be efficient and was soon abandoned.

In 1911 the New South Wales Government bought one of the local quarries, the Kiama Road Metal Company, and revived the tramway idea. Construction of this tramway was completed in 1914. That tramway was used until 1941.
Two locomotives were used to transport the blue metal to hoppers at the harbour where it was loaded onto ships. The system became so successful that ships could arrive in Kiama harbour around midnight, be loaded, and be on their way to Sydney before daybreak.

These were mostly small ships, and many (at least 20) came to grief on the 55-mile voyage to or from Sydney.
By 1883 the Kiama basalt quarries were supplying 400 tons of blue metal a day. And, at its peak, 300 men were employed in the quarries. This prompted the Government to build houses to accommodate the workers and their families (examples are the terrace houses along Collins Street), and the town began to prosper.

In 1882, a jetty was built at Bombo and steam powered crushing machines were installed there.

Although Bombo was not as reliable a port as Kiama, because of its exposed position, considerable quantities of blue metal were taken from there in the 1880s and 1890s.

In the early 1890s the NSW railways took over the Bombo quarry and extended the railway in 1887 from Port Kembla to Bombo (North Kiama). From that time on, the Bombo jetty was rarely used. (The railway was extended from North Kiama into Kiama township in 1893; and trivia: Bombo was originally Bumbo, the Aboriginal word for thunder. An o replaced the u when until a clergyman objected that the name given to the area was too rude!)

Blue metal continued to be shipped to Sydney until World War II. After that, until quarrying ceased completely in 1954, the basalt from Kiama-Bombo was transported by railway.