The Convict Fence

This morning's weather forecast for New Year's day is for a hot day (35°C), and with winds up to 30 kph.

Added to this, wind gusts of up to 50 kph are expected.

I decided not to go riding today.

By 9:30 am, however, it didn't seem too bad, and, noticing that the river tide was at a low then, I decided to have a little ride out to photograph the convict fence.

The Canning River near where we live is broad and very shallow, as you can see with the exposed mud flats at low tide above.  Notice also that line of sticks jutting out of the water in the distance.  More on that later.

At low tide, the birds were feeding.  The pelican on the left is skimming the water with its beak for food and the one on the right has just raised his head to swallow something.

 Above, ibises and ducks feeding in the shallows, and below, a cormorant drying its wings.

Now here's a closer look at that row of posts in the river that I mentioned earlier.

Back in the 1860s, timber was cut in the hills (the Darling Range) to the east of Perth.  This timber was then transported via a horse-drawn railway to a point on the river now known as Mason's Landing, also very close to where we live.

I searched my picture collection to see if I had any pics of this place, and this one is the only one I could find.  Mason's Landing is now a park and the pic shows  Flem playing there about 4 years ago.

From Mason's Landing, the lumber went by barge via the Canning and then the Swan River down to Fremantle for export.

However, as the Canning was also very shallow even in those days, sometimes the barges were stuck on the mud and sand banks, leading to financial loss for the timber suppliers.

The solution was this fence which was built by convict labour.

Currently, only the posts are left standing.  These are made of WA jarrah, a very hard wood.  Interleaved between the posts were branches from nearby trees and shrubs, and these have not survived.

The idea was for the convicts to dredge the centre of the river by hand and throw the silt over the fence, thereby creating a deeper channel for the barges.

There were a few little jetties on the river and I went on them to search out vantage points to photograph the fence.

I parked my bike next to a little armchair on one of the jetties, which I presumed had been left there by a fisherman to make his outings more comfortable.

The manual dredging had limited success.  A paddle steamer was later used to dredge the river and this appeared to be more successful.

An interesting and detailed history (with pictures of the wood cutting and transportation) can be found here.

A very interesting though long video of the timber industry in WA in the 1920s can be found here.