Port Macquarie Suburb Overview
Port Macquarie is a city on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, about 390 km north of Sydney, and 570 km south of Brisbane. The city is located on the coast, at the mouth of the Hastings River, and has an estimated population of 44,313.
The site of Port Macquarie was first visited by Europeans in 1818 when John Oxley reached the Pacific Ocean from the interior, after his journey to explore inland New South Wales. He named the location after the Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie.
Oxley noted that ‘the port abounds with fish, the sharks were larger and more numerous than I have ever before observed. The forest hills and rising grounds abounded with large kangaroos and the marshes afford shelter and support to innumerable wild fowl. Independent of the Hastings River, the area is generally well watered, there is a fine spring at the very entrance to the Port’.
In 1821, Port Macquarie was founded as the first penal settlement, replacing Newcastle as the destination for convicts that had committed secondary crimes in New South Wales. Newcastle, which had fulfilled this role for the previous two decades, had lost the features required for a place for dumping irredeemable criminals, that being isolation, which was lost as the Hunter Valley was opened up to farmers, and large amounts of hard labour, which had diminished as the cedar in the area ran out and the settlement grew in size. Port Macquarie, however, with its thick bush, tough terrain and local aborigines that were keen to return escaping prisoners in return for tobacco and blankets, provided large amounts of both isolation and hard labour to keep the criminals in control. Under its first commandant, Francis Allman, who was fond of the flogging, the settlement became hell, where the convicts had limited liberties, especially in regard to being in possession of letters and writing papers, which could get a convict up to 100 lashes.
Due to the lack of liberties of the settlement, Ralph Darling, governor of New South Wales, quickly sent many ‘specials’ or literate convicts with a decent education who had voiced negative views about him. Later on in the settlements history, in the 1830s, disabled convicts started to arrive. One-armed men would be grouped together and required to break stones, men with wooden legs would become delivery men, and the blind would often be given tasks during the night which they performed more skilfully than those with sight.
In 1823 the first sugar cane to be cultivated in Australia was planted there. The region was first opened to settlers in 1830 and later on in the decade the penal settlement was closed in favour of a new penal settlement at Moreton Bay. Settlers quickly took advantage of the area’s good pastoral land, timber resources and fisheries.
St Thomas
In 1840 the
Over 20 shipwrecks occurred in the Tacking Point area before a lighthouse was designed by James Barnet and erected there in 1879 by Shepard and Mortley. Tacking Point Lighthouse is classified by the National Trust of Australia .
In the 2006 Census the wider area of the Hastings Valley had a total population of 68,429 up 9.5% from the 2001 Census. Port Macquarie is now the fastest growing place in New South Wales. The town is expected to grow from an estimated 43,655 people in 2009 to 58,888 in 2027.
Port Macquarie is a retirement destination, known for its extensive beaches and waterways. The town is also known for its koala population, being the home to the Billabong Koala Park, and the Koala Preservation Society’s Koala Hospital, caring for koalas injured through bushfire, dog attacks and collisions with vehicles.
Nearby Suburbs
