Marina service
Evans Head Boat Harbour
About
Evans Head Boat Harbour at a glance
Small coastal boat harbour at Evans Head on the far north coast, used by recreational fishers and a small commercial fleet; one of the few breakwall harbours between Ballina and Yamba.
Service area: Far North Coast
- Marina type
- government/transport wharf-marina
- Operator
- Richmond Valley Council / NSW Crown Lands
- Region
- Far North Coast
- Water body
- Evans River
Facilities and services
- five-lane all-tide boat ramp
- pontoon moorings
- fish cleaning tables
- co-op seafood & takeaway
- coastal bar webcam
- ocean access moorings (co-op)
About Evans Head Boat Harbour
Evans Head Boat Harbour sits inside the mouth of the Evans River on the far north coast, one of only a handful of breakwall-protected harbours between Ballina and Yamba, and it carries a fishing pedigree far larger than its current fleet suggests. In the 1950s and 1960s more than seventy trawlers worked out of the river, landing up to 2,700 kilograms of school prawns a day; the catch was packed in newspaper-lined wooden boxes, trucked to Casino railway station and sent by train to the Sydney Fish Markets at Woolloomooloo. Today exactly one working fishing boat, the Seaview, remains, a decline marked in February 2024 when a monument honouring the town's fishermen was unveiled opposite the old co-operative with funding help from Sydney Fish Markets themselves. The Evans Head Fishermen's Co-operative still trades on the northern bank, selling prawns, oysters and fresh fish and running a fish-and-chip shop with tables on the wharf where you can watch the river traffic against the sunset. The harbour itself, managed through Richmond Valley Council and Crown Lands, is now overwhelmingly a recreational facility: trailer boats heading for the close inshore reefs, kayakers and paddleboarders working the estuary, and holidaymakers from the big Reflections park at the river mouth. The Evans Head Living Museum and the heritage-listed Memorial Aerodrome, a World War II RAAF training field, add depth to a town whose identity is split evenly between aviation and the sea. Dirawong Reserve, the goanna headland of Bundjalung story, guards the southern breakwall. Barbecue facilities, a riverside walking track and the shops along Elm Street make the southern bank a family foreshore as much as a working one.
Marina facilities
This is a council boat harbour rather than a marina, so think ramps, pontoons and public facilities rather than pedestals and berths. Two boat ramps sit at the southern end of the river off Elm Street; the principal Evans Head ramp is a five-lane concrete structure with an adjacent pontoon, usable at all tides, backed by 21 to 50 car-and-trailer spaces, toilets, lighting, fish-cleaning tables, barbecues and waste bins. Pontoon moorings along the southern bank provide casual tie-up space for river users. On the northern side, the Evans Head Fishermen's Co-operative offers boat mooring facilities with access to both the river and the ocean alongside its seafood retail and takeaway trade, open seven days for lunch and dinner. There is no published fuel wharf, slipway, power or water service for recreational vessels at the harbour itself, so visiting boats should arrive fuelled and self-sufficient; the co-op and the town behind Elm Street, with its pub, club, bakery and small shops, cover provisioning within a short walk. Aerial photographs from 1980 show two commercial slipways working the harbour in the trawler era, but that heavy marine industry has contracted with the fleet. For paddlers, the ramp is the recognised start of the eleven-kilometre return run upriver to Waterfall Creek, best launched about two hours before high tide at the Evans Head bridge. Transport for NSW maintains a live coastal bar webcam at the entrance, which functions as the harbour's de facto condition board for anyone planning an ocean trip. Richmond Valley Council maintains the facility as owner under the state boating infrastructure registry, which rates the ramp in good condition with access at all times.
Local sailing knowledge
The Evans River entrance is guarded by breakwaters on both sides, but the bar is exposed and conditions shift quickly, so treat the crossing with respect in any weather, check the Transport for NSW webcam before committing and pick your tide; local consensus favours the top of a rising tide with settled swell. Inside, the river is a friendly estuary. Two islands sit just upstream of the ramp with the deepest water to their left, and beyond them the channel narrows and quickens over the remains of the Iron Gates, a natural ironstone bridge and sacred Bundjalung site destroyed by the army in 1914; until then salt water could not push further inland. Sandy beaches inside Bundjalung National Park line the banks on the way to Waterfall Creek. Offshore, the grounds that fed seventy trawlers still produce, with inshore reefs holding snapper, jewfish and tailor, and Airforce Beach north of the walls allows 4WD access for beach fishers. Whales pass close in season and the breakwall is a popular land-based watch point. The town itself is compact: Club Evans handles dinner and a schooner, the Living Museum opens Wednesday to Friday and rewards an hour with its fishing displays, and the Memorial Aerodrome still operates, so do not be surprised to share the skyline with warbirds. Ballina lies about 40 kilometres north by road and Yamba a similar distance south, making Evans Head the natural overnight stop on that stretch for small craft when the bar behaves. The breakwall itself doubles as a fishing platform and whale-watch vantage, and the pub, bowling club and holiday parks mean crew can sleep steps from the ramp.